My specialization is the philosophy of race, post-colonial philosophy, feminism, and womanism. I developed this course at the request of my students and for the Philosophy Department at Case Western Reserve University. I teach at Case Western Reserve University and John Carroll University. Although I have depth and breadth teaching about slavery and the colonial legacy that influenced the lives of people across the various marginalized diasporas in the entire world, I didn’t want to be too broad, and so I focused on the philosophy and history of race in the United States. Although my students don’t know the development and the recent history of North America, I tried to introduce them to theories on race that influenced the development of social justice in the United States. I focused on theory and current events in the course. The reading list is my favorite part of the syllabus. My students enjoyed the class discussions and paper assignments.
The elements that influenced my courses are: ethics, social and political philosophy, and SAGES intensive undergraduate writing seminar on Race and Social Justice. For SAGES intensive undergraduate writing seminar, I will make room in the course for a student presentation at the end of every assigned book for the course. My advice for philosophy faculty or instructors who want to teach courses on race is that they must stay on top of the current literature on race and social justice, beginning with the United States and then across the world.
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Dr. Nathalie Nya
Dr. Nathalie Nya’s areas of expertise are Political Theory, Ethics, Post-colonial Philosophy, Philosopher of Race, Feminism, and Womanism. She is the author of Simone de Beauvoir and The Colonial Experience: Freedom, Violence, and Identity (2019). She is working on a second manuscript that attempts to put into dialogue Political Theory, Ethics, and Post-colonial Philosophy. The second manuscript is scheduled to be published by 2024. She has started gaining expertise in Decolonial Ecology and is presently working on an article on the subject. After the article’s publication, Dr. Nya hopes to gain a contract to write a third book on “A” Decolonial Eco-feminism. Her role models are Fanon, Simone de Beauvoir and Sartre.
