Bioethics (Summer 2022)
I was the course instructor for an undergraduate course on Ethics and Biomedicine at the University of Manitoba in Summer 2022. I focused on applying ethical theories, including utilitarianism, Kantianism, virtue ethics, and feminist ethics of care, to issues in health and medicine. I led students in considering several cases, including abortion, reproductive technology, and euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide, as well as the role of bioethics during pandemics, like COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS, and the effects of racism on healthcare.
Teaching
Health Policy (Fall 2021)
I was the course instructor for an online undergraduate course on Health Policy and Health Governance at the University of Victoria in Fall 2021. I focused on the importance of health ethics in decisions about policy and governance around several contemporary public health issues, including COVID-19, Indigenous people’s health, aging, and disability. I used online discussion forums as well as a policy brief assignment and a critical essay to help students build their skills in discussing, understanding, and critiquing public health policy in Canada.
Ancient Philosophy (Winter 2019)
I was the course instructor for an undergraduate seminar on Ancient Philosophy at York University in Winter 2019. I focused on the important moral concepts of love and friendship in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, focusing on Symposium, Phaedrus, Lysis, and Nicomachean Ethics. I compared and contrasted Plato's and Aristotle’s theories with modern theories of love and friendship in order to demonstrate the relevance of ancient philosophy today, the importance of understanding these concepts and the role of philosophy in our personal lives.
Gender & Sexuality
I focus on theories of gender and sexuality in philosophy as well as other related academic disciplines and explore theories from feminist philosophers like Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, bell hooks, Monique Wittig, and others. This includes discussions of philosophical issues related to both gender and sexuality, including queer and trans identities and experiences, and the intersections of other identities with both sexuality and gender, including race, Indigeneity, and disability, and their critical and historical context today.
Environmental Ethics
I focus on the ethics of climate change and explore how moral concepts like responsibility, justice, and equality are involved in the ways we think about the crisis today. This includes discussions of other contemporary philosophical problems, like intergenerational ethics, international law, anthropocentrism, human and non-human animal rights, etc. and the discoveries that ethical theories are important for understanding climate change today and that philosophy helps us shape our beliefs and actions, which are critical for engaging with the crisis.