Engaging Lectures: Philosophy through Relevance and Recency

The article addresses the challenge of student engagement in undergraduate lectures on philosophy. It presents a variation of the problem-based approach to course design, proposing an emphasis on relevance and recency as effective means for drawing students into the material, while also helping them to understand that philosophy is very much alive today. Two example modules are also provided to illustrate the idea – one concerning personal identity and the other concerning existentialism. They can be adapted and integrated into existing courses outright, or they may be used as models informing the development of new modules exploring different issues.