My courses help students apply philosophical skills to thrive in diverse democracies.
Approach
I design courses that locate thinkers in their material cultural contexts to illuminate their most significant ideas. Students thus learn to evaluate perennial questions through significant, influential viewpoints that resonate today. While my primary expertise concerns eighteenth to twentieth-century thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Hannah Arendt or Emmanuel Levinas, I also feature ancient and medieval thinkers such as Avicenna, Al Ghazali, Dogen, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Maimonides, Anselm or Julian of Norwich. Critical interventions in the debates of their times help to inform students about how to face their own intellectual questions.
We live in complex information cultures that benefit from the intersubjective habits of mind my courses promote. Such skills are embedded in the marking rubrics I use to assess a student’s ability to prove their argument, evaluate concepts in context, as well as apply well-researched primary and secondary sources of evidence. We may have tremendous power to access information through digital tools, but this does not inevitably result in the skills necessary to deliberate meaningfully amidst diverse human beings. It seems to me that Kant's enlightenment challenge, sapere aude [dare to be wise], remains ever out in front of us.
Course Offerings
The following courses feature in the University of Newcastle’s Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education (Secondary) degrees.
1000 Level
World Religions introduces the principal features of the world's major religions through reference to key events, characters, beliefs and related phenomena. A range of thinkers are discussed such as Philo of Alexandria, Origen of Caesarea Maritima, Adi Shankara, Muhammad Rumi, Dogen Zenji [Kigen], Julian of Norwich, Sayyid Qutb, Mohandas Gandhi and Vine Deloria Jr.
Virtual Religion explores religious themes in a sampling of global cinema, streamed media, video games and virtual reality simulated experiences. It aims to help students begin to interpret their visual styles, narrative constructions, technological interactions and historical contexts.
Ethics of Emerging Technologies introduces how a mathematical, algorithmic, or design principle raises new ethical questions about an emerging technology. The course enhances student capacities to evaluate technological dangers as well as direct their positive potentialities. It is also offered at the postgraduate level here.
2000 Level
Philosophy of Religion examines a number of issues that came to the fore in the ancient, medieval, early modern, enlightenment and later periods such as proofs for the existence of God, various conceptions of transcendence, the nature of the self, the concept of religion, and the relation of religious and scientific forms of inquiry. Thinkers to be considered may include Augustine, Avicenna, Anselm of Canterbury, Moses Maimonides, Hildegard of Bingen, Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Buber, Simone Weil and Jacques Derrida.
Suffering: Comparative Studies investigates diverse ethical responses to human and other forms of suffering. It develops comparative methodologies in the academic study of philosophy, religion and ethics in order to help students evaluate divergent viewpoints on the topic. Thinkers discussed may include Gottfried Leibniz, Al Ghazali, Immanuel Kant, Nagarjuna, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, René Girard, and Emmanuel Levinas.
Democracy and Diversity examines the complex relationship between democracy and various forms of cultural and religious diversity. It analyses key concepts developed by political philosophers who impacted democratic theory with particular attention to social inclusion and enfranchisement. Thinkers discussed may include Thomas Hobbes, Benedict Spinoza, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile Durkheim, W.E.B. Du Bois, John Rawls, Juergen Habermas and Kwame Appiah.
3000 Level
Critical Thinkers examines the development of some of the most influential thinkers of the contemporary period. Students will develop their own critical thinking skills by evaluating the works of figures such as John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, Paul Ricoeur, Iris Murdoch, Richard Rorty, Martha Nussbaum, Hubert Dreyfus and Andy Clark.
PhD and MPhil
I supervise research students on various topics related to the courses above and my own authored books and articles. In order to evaluate my potential suitability to supervise a research project I require three things: 1) a copy of your transcripts from previous undergraduate and graduate studies in philosophy of religion, history of ideas or a cognate discipline; 2) a curriculum vitae with publications and relevant experience; and, 3) a research thesis proposal which should outline your project’s background, aims, methodology and outcomes stating its contribution to new knowledge, thesis chapter completion timeline, and bibliography. Further guidelines on research proposals are available here. Details on the university's formal application process are available here.
University Service & Engagement
2024-26, Deputy Head of School Teaching and Learning, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences
2018-26, Discipline Leader, Studies of Philosophy, Religion and Ethics
2019-23, Academic Representative, College Teaching and Learning Committee, College of Human and Social Futures
2023, Historical, Cultural and Critical Inquiry Coordinator, Academic Work Allocation Model (AWAM) Committee, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences
2019-22, Leader, Historical, Cultural and Critical Inquiry Group
2019, Member, B.A. Honours Revitalization Working Group (2019 Faculty of Education and Arts Dean’s Award for Collaboration Excellence)
2012-17, Convenor, Religion Courses in the B.A. Philosophy and Religion Major
2012-17, Convenor, Religion Honours, M.Phil. and Ph.D. Research
2016, Head of Discipline, Philosophy and Religion
2016, Member, B.A. Revitalization Working Group (2017 Faculty of Education and Arts Dean’s Award for Collaboration Excellence)
2012-16, Convenor, Theology Programs (Dip.Th, B.Th, B.Th Honours)
2012-13, Convenor and Lead Investigator, Religion in Political Life Research Program
2011-12, Convenor, Research Group for Religious and Intellectual Traditions
