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PHIL 306 Philosophy and Sexuality

This introductory course explores the most basic ideas about human sexuality and sexual identity: What does it mean to be a woman or a man? What does it mean to have a sexual identity? Is there such a thing as "normal" sex? How has sexuality been socially regulated in the past and how is it currently regulated? How can people evaluate such "regulations"? How do ideas about sexuality influence gender, ethnic, racial and other stereotypes? What sorts of ideas do people have about the nature of their bodies? Students develop basic philosophical skills in order to sort out these questions. Topics usually include: eroticism, desire, homophobia, sexual violence, pornography, prostitution, and sexual imagery in popular culture, love and romance.

Special information

Overlap: GNDR 306.
4 Undergraduate credits

Effective August 1, 1998 to present

Meets graduation requirements for

Learning outcomes

General

  • Critically examine various aspects of sexual identity.
  • Compare and contrast multiple accounts of gender identity.
  • Develop communication skills necessary for displaying and acting on those beliefs and attitudes that facilitate living and working effectively as a citizen in a diverse society.
  • Focus most acutely on the centrality of justification for claims made in these accounts.
  • Identify and explain, at an advanced collegiate level, the particular social, economic, historical, political and discursive factors that influence the development of gender identity.
  • Use the work of the course to reflect on personal beliefs and attitudes about the nature of gender identity.

Minnesota Transfer Curriculum

Goal 6: The Humanities and Fine Arts

  • Demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in the arts and humanities.
  • Understand those works as expressions of individual and human values within a historical and social context.
  • Respond critically to works in the arts and humanities.
  • Engage in the creative process or interpretive performance.
  • Articulate an informed personal reaction to works in the arts and humanities.

Goal 7A: Human Diversity, Race, Power, and Justice in the United States

  • Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States' history and culture.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
  • Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.
  • Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.
  • Demonstrate communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.