PHIL/LING 145.001 – Language and Communication

Instructor: Minji Jang. This course meets MWF 10:10 – 11:00 a.m. in PE 10.

We’ll begin with the basic philosophical theories of language and meaning. Then we’ll spend the rest of the course studying language as speech acts and its applications with the special focus on gendered and racial speech. The potential topics include: lies, bullshit, racist and sexist jokes, slurs, epistemic injustice, silencing, pornography, subordinating speech and ways to resist it.

This is an introductory course and does not assume any background in philosophy or linguistics.

Reading and discussion topics may include explicit content. Feel free to reach out to the instructor at any time if you have concerns about potential topics.