PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL IN CHINA

2011 SESSION: PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY

SOUTHWEST UNIVERSITY, CHONGQING

25 JULY- 13 AUGUST 2011

Provisional Schedule

Week I

Week II

Week III

 RG = Reading Groups; Com = Common Room

NOTES:

1. Staff Members may wish to invite Members to an informal party on Monday 8 August in place of a Common Room. 

2. There will be one-day breaks between Weeks I & II (30 July) and Weeks II & III (5 August) to provide two days at the end of the session (10-11 August) for Members to write their assessment examinations. Sightseeing is arranged for these four days. Examinations papers will be distributed after the final reading group and will be due at 5.30 pm on Thursday 11 August. Normally, Staff Members mark the examination essays in the 24 hours after they are received from Members.

3. The daily schedule avoids three English-language lectures in a row without a break for Members. Also, it gives Staff Members longer stretches of free time for final preparation for teaching and for informal local sightseeing.

4. We shall have four reading groups, and each reading group will have 10 sessions. Staff Members will conduct their reading groups only on the days on which they deliver course lectures. The Staff Member conducting each group should choose suitable reading from their course text. Staff members are free to organise their reading group as they wish. They might ask reading group members to meet without their Staff Member to discuss the assigned reading in Chinese as a preparation for the reading group meeting held in English. They might ask for short pieces of written work. They might ask members to make oral presentations to open discussion of the assigned reading.

5. We shall follow our successful pattern and require members of each reading group in turn to attend the first Common Room meetings, with other members free to take part as well. Attendance at other Common Room meetings will be on a voluntary basis.