Gal Katz


Teaching

Hilma af Klint, Swan (1914-1915)

I started teaching 12 years ago and acquired a wide-range of teaching and tutoring experience in the history of philosophy, political philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics.

Still as a Masters student at Tel Aviv University, I was exceptionally given a unique opportunity to lead four “stand-alone” reading and discussion classes, on Plato’s Gorgias, Descartes’s Meditations, Kant’s Groundwork and Critique of Judgment, Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, and Heidegger’s Origin of the Work of Art. At Columbia, I’ve been a teaching fellow in classes on the philosophy of art, the philosophy of history, ethics, and Hegel’s philosophy.

Approaching philosophy as a humanistic discipline, I’ve developed an interest in designing and teaching general humanities classes. As a Postdoctoral Core Lecturer, I teach two sections of my own yearlong course within Columbia College’s Core Curriculum. The course, Contemporary Civilization, ranges from Plato’s Republic, through Al-Ghazali and other medieval philosophers, to Foucault and Fanon, exploring accounts of the relationship between the individual and her community. 

For a statement of my pedagogical credo, click here.

For recent teaching evaluations—here.