PHIL 339 - Understanding Life Through Experience

Units: 3 ; Breadth Area: GE-UD-3; Diversity
This course will focus on phenomenology (the study of lived experience). Including phenomena such as death, birth, mystical experience, (inhibition of) instincts, psychoses, diversity of experience, cultural impact on experience, individuation, vocation, teleology and more.

Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-3 - Upper Division Arts or Humanities, Overlay - Diversity
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas 1A, 1B, 1C and GE-2 with grade C- (CR) or better (GE Areas A1, A2, A3 and B4 for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area 3 requirements (lower division Area C requirements for students on the 2024-25 or earlier catalogs).
Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Online-Asynchronous or Online-Synchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Course Typically Offered: Fall ONLY

Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate knowledge of the philosophical and cultural study of phenomenology:

2. Develop their capacities for ethical decision making, Socratic humility, openness to the ideas of others, reflective self-awareness, and a life-long curiosity and apply them to an analysis of their own internal life;

3. Cultivate an appreciation for ideas about lived experience in areas such as: religion, culture, ethnicity, race, class, sexuality, and gender.

4. Analyze the intersection of the categories of race and gender as they affect cultural group members’ internally lived realities.

GE-UD-3. Upper-division Arts or Humanities Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply principles, methodologies, values systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities.
Analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human.
Demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts or humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.

Diversity Overlay Learning Outcomes
1. Describe the histories and/or experiences of one or more U.S. cultural groups, and the resilience and agency of group members.

2. Identify structures of oppression and the diverse efforts and strategies used by U.S. cultural groups to combat the effects of oppressive structures.

3. Analyze the intersection of categories of race and gender as they affect U.S. cultural group members’ lived realities and/or as they are embodied in personal and collective identities.

4. Recognize the way that multiple differences (including, e.g., gender, class, sexuality, religion, disability, immigration status, gender expression, color/phenotype, racial mixture, linguistic expression, and/or age) within U.S. cultural groups complicate individual and group identities.