Developing habits of mind to thrive in diverse democracies.

Approach to Teaching

My courses are designed so that students encounter the lived lives of diverse thinkers from around the world. Each week locates them in their material cultural contexts to illuminate their most significant ideas. Students learn to evaluate perennial questions about knowledge, meaning and reality as well as ethical issues that arise from relationships, technology, religion and democratic life. While my primary expertise concerns eighteenth to twentieth-century thinkers such as Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Hannah Arendt and Emmanuel Levinas, I also feature ancient and medieval thinkers such as Avicenna, al-Ghazali, Dogen, Nagarjuna, Shankara, Maimonides, Anselm and Julian of Norwich. Critical interventions in the debates of their times help to inform students about how to face their own dilemmas.

We live in complex information cultures that benefit from the relational habits of mind my courses promote. Such skills are relevant to careers in medicine, architecture, computer design, law, business, education, social work or any public facing profession where open communication practices about ethical matters can enhance professional outcomes. Such practices are embedded in my marking rubrics that provide guidance about how to prove your viewpoint, 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. My courses respond by providing forums where students can build up the skills necessary to live peacably in democratic societies haunted by Kant's enlightenment challenge, sapere aude [dare to be wise].

Courses

These courses feature in the University of Newcastle’s Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education (Secondary) degrees. They are also listed in several others such as Social Sciences, Communication and Media Studies, Mathematics, Data Science and Cybersecurity.

Service to University

  • 2024-26, Deputy Head of School Teaching and Learning, School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences

  • 2017-26, Discipline Leader, Studies of Philosophy, Religion and Ethics

  • 2019-23, Academic Representative, College Teaching and Learning Committee

  • 2019-22, Group Leader, Historical, Cultural and Critical Inquiry

  • 2016, Head of Discipline, Philosophy and Religion

  • 2012-16, Convenor, Theology Programs

Feedback

Annual averages of all questions asked

Students rated my taught courses at the University of Newcastle 4.4 out of 5 on average over the last six years. Engaging content, organizational design and flexible choice of assessment topics are regularly cited as strengths.