Important Notes: 

(1) The course is open only to Master's and Doctoral students registerted in the Philosophy Department.

(2) By virtue of the catastrophic events we have gone through recently, it was decided by the authorities that the lectures of Spring 2023 will be conducted on-line.  The students of this course are advised to check their METU e-mail regularly (in the beginning of the term and afterwards) to get properly informed regarding the way we will carry out our lectures and similar matters.

COURSE OUTLINE:

   Ubiqe mors est; optime hoc cavit Deus;
   Eripers vitam nemo non homini potest;
   At nemo mortem: mille ad hanc aditus patent.

                                     Seneca

The subject matter of this course will be death, where we will be reading and evaluating mainly contemporary literature.  While the greater portion of the reading material will pertain to the 20th century, our starting point will be Epicurus' s famous argument regarding the harm/evil of death.  We will chiefly try to tackle certain issues with regard to the Epicurean perspective and also examine some prominent existential and/or phenomenological accounts addressing the questions of, inter alia, the methodological problems surrounding studies of one's own death, the meaning of finite existences, how culture fashions people’s conception of death, and death as the ultimate phenomenological limit.

Grading:  You will write a single paper for this course, at least 4000 words or approximately 12 pages (65% grade value).  It will be submitted in the finals period.  You are required to produce a written progress report (10% grade value) several weeks before the submission of paper.  The remaining 25% will come from your presentations, attendance rate and participation in our class discussions.

Note: Students are responsible for arranging a presentation time in consultation with me.  You are expected to determine your presentation topic/time within the first four weeks of the term.

Plagiarism:  Students must familiarize themselves with the definition of plagiarism and the ways to avoid it.