This course serves as a broad survey of major traditions within contemporary Continental philosophy and theory. It is organized topically around the following issues and debates: 1. Should the classical approaches to subjectivity developed in transcendental phenomenology be overcome by ontology? Are both phenomenology and ontology a product of a totalizing system of thought to be displaced by an ethics of radical otherness? Or is ethics necessarily reclaimed by the very metaphysical tradition it seeks to break away from? 2.What is the value of a structure-‐based approach to human reality, which captures the larger-‐than-‐individual forces such as linguistic differences and social relations of power? To what degree are structure-‐based approaches wedded to the traditional conceptions of science and to the metaphysics of presence – hence in need of deconstruction? 3. Is theoretical practice best described as pure reflection, or rather as a language-‐based hermeneutical process? 4. What is the relation between the traditional concept of history and genealogy? 5. What does a deconstructive practice of reading philosophical texts consist in, and does deconstruction necessarily turn philosophy into a species of literature? If so, is this a problem? Other questions and debates will be addressed, and participants are encouraged and expected to bring their own research interests into the conversation. Traditions represented will include phenomenology, phenomenological ontology, ethics of alterity, structuralism and post‐structuralism, hermeneutics, genealogy, and deconstruction. We will be readings representative texts by Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau‐Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, Irigaray, C. Levi‐Strauss, Gadamer, Foucault, and Habermas.