TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Harvard University, Committee on Degrees in Social Studies:

Lecturer, 2019-Present

Solidarity in Theory and Action (Spring 2023, Junior Tutorial) 

How do you fight oppression when (a) you can’t theorize a stable essential self or group to emancipate and (b) power is totalizing and you can never really be “free” from power anyway? People with different experiences, beliefs, and commitments, are struggling, fighting, and organizing to get free from oppression and empower themselves. They fight against one another and sometimes manage to band together in their struggles. This course examines how solidarity, emancipation, and coalition can be possible in our post-foundational world, and how we bridge the gap between social theory and social action. We will learn from theoretical debates in feminist, queer, Black, democratic, radical, postcolonial, and disability studies on questions of agency, solidarity, and liberation, and will also analyze real-world case studies of coalitions.

This course is designed and taught solely by me, and students write one 25 page paper due at the end of term, and the course is designed to support students in writing their first significant research paper, with assignments throughout the semester to help them develop their research question and final paper.

The Many Faces of Tyranny (Fall 2019, Junior Tutorial)

Tyranny is traditionally seen as the ultimate threat to political freedom. This course explores the way tyranny presents in different times and places, and the many ways tyranny can create unfreedom. From a wild man out of control, to a carefully orchestrated system of control, tyranny wears many faces. Through this course we will examine what a tyrannical state (and/or person) is, what makes it rise to power, and what can be done to stop it.  A tyrant can be one person, it can be a nation, an empire. Can the term even stretch to an entire socio-economic system, or beyond? A tyrant is traditionally one who is lawless, so is a totalitarian dictator who enforces a system a law a kind of tyrant, or something else entirely?

This course is designed and taught by me and students write one 25 page paper due at the end of term, and the course is designed to support students in writing their first significant research paper, with assignments throughout the semester to help them develop their research question and final paper.

Introduction to Social Studies (Fall 2019-Present, Sophomore Tutorial)

This is course is Introduction to Modern Social Thought.  It covers Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, Foucault, Saba Mahmood, and many others. I teach one tutorial section of this large year-long survey course.  Lectures are given weekly by another instructor, and I lead a tutorial each week, design their assignments and give feedback and assessments. 

     Guest Lectures I have given:
                 Judith Butler: Gender Trouble & Undoing Gender (2022)
Karl Marx: “On the Jewish Question” (2021)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Second Discourse (2020)

UC Berkeley, Political Science Department:

Head Instructor, 2018

As head instructor for these courses, I created the syllabi, lectured three times a week, meet with students weekly and advise my teaching assistants on a weekly basis about how to run their classes as well as how to evaluate the students’ work.

Renaissance & Early Modern History of Political Thought (Fall 2018, 108 Students)

History of Modern Political Thought (Spring 2018, 162 Students)

Teaching Assistant, 2012-2017

As a teaching assistant, I was responsible for two weekly classes of 27 students each in which I reviewed the week’s lectures and assigned reading as well as leading the class in collaborative small group learning exercises. I was also responsible for grading all papers and exams and giving extensive written feedback to students and working with them to improve their work.

Ancient and Medieval Political Thought (Fall 2017, 54 Students)
Guest lecture: “Aristotle’s Constitutions (Politics Book IV Chs 2-4; 8-12)”

Ancient Political Thought (Fall 2014 and Fall 2012, 54 Students)
Guest lecture: “Plato’s Republic Book II”

Early Modern History of Political Thought (Spring 2014, 54 Students)
Guest lecture: “Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan and the laws of nature”

Gender and International Human Rights (Fall 2013, 54 Students)

Introduction to Political Theory (Spring 2013, 54 Students)
Guest lecture: “Susan Moller Okin’s critique of Rawls”

Tufts University, Political Science Department:

Teaching Assistant, 2008-2009

For these courses I held bi-weekly review sessions, weekly office hours, and graded papers and exams for Professor Robert Devigne.

Introduction to Modern Political Thought (Spring 2009, Spring 2008, )
Rousseau’s Political Philosophy (Spring 2009)
Nietzsche’s Political Philosophy (Fall 2008)
Liberalism and Its Critics (Fall 2008)