3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Feminist Philosophy of Language began as a critical movement that called for changes within language to reflect the goals of the early Feminist movement. These critiques were aimed both at the discipline of Philosophy of Language and at language itself. In the late 20th century, a second branch of Feminist Philosophy of Language emerged and has since grown considerably. This branch contains a range of emancipatory projects that adopt the tools, frameworks, and concepts developed in the Philosophy of Language to address oppressive features of our world. Emancipatory projects in Feminist Philosophy of Language are broadly concerned with the identification of speech related harms, the clarification of linguistic devices and mechanisms that constitute modes of oppression, and the development of theory that aids in the resistance of oppression in ordinary language context. This course will focus on this recent branch of Feminist Philosophy of Language and the emancipatory projects it contains. In this course students will be introduced to the central Pragmatic theories in Philosophy of Language which underpin emancipatory projects in Feminist Philosophy of Language. Using these theories as a foundation, this course will be cover to topics such as practices of silencing, hate speech and slurs, political and propagandistic rhetoric, sexual consent, and oppressive speech.