Teaching

I find teaching to be one of the most important and rewarding aspects of my work. ​
You can find info on student feedback and courses I've taught below.
 
Recently (2020), I was an invited lecturer on anger at the University of Copenhagen. 
In 2018-2019 I was hired by the UCL Philosophy Department to act as primary supervisor for an undergraduate thesis (title: 'constructing sex')

Student Feedback

In my role as teaching assistant for Feminism and Philosophy I was nominated by the students for a:
‘Student Choice Teaching Award for outstanding support to teaching’. 

Over 90% of my students across all courses taught found my overall teaching  ‘Very Good’ or 'Excellent’

On a  scale from 1 (unsatisfactory) to 5 (excellent) students ranked  me  between ‘Very Good’ and ‘Excellent’
for all four key teaching skills.  Graph displays average rankings across all courses taught:

Laura is the #1 GTA in the philosophy department. She's incredibly well prepared, has an amazing rapport with the class - I could not have asked for someone better.’ 
(Anonymous feedback from 3rd year undergraduate Philosophy of Psychology student)

Ms Silva is really engaging and encourages us to deeply understand the readings. I also found her feedback on the reading week formative essay extremely useful. She is an excellent teacher.’ 
(Anonymous feedback from 1st year undergraduate History of Philosophy II student)

As Primary Instructor

La Valeur des Émotions, Université de Genève 

Emotions have multiple relationships to values. This seminar focuses on one of these relationships, namely the value that emotions have both at the level of the individual who feels them and at the level of the community in which he lives. More specifically, the seminar will explore the nature and value of particular emotions such as admiration, pride, anger, shame, guilt, regret, envy, jealousy, boredom, love, fear, hope, compassion, sadness, disgust, etc. It will begin with a general presentation of the relationship between emotions and values to focus specifically on the types of value (instrumental vs. final, personal vs. impersonal, individual vs. social, moral vs. amoral, etc.) that emotions can exemplify. Then, the seminar will be organized around the reading of texts targeting the normativity that characterizes a particular emotion or family of emotions. In doing so, we will have the opportunity to address some of the following questions: What is the relationship between admiration and virtue? Is hate always immoral? Is shame necessarily social? Can anger have a positive social and political impact? Is envy the source of political egalitarianism? Is compassion the sign of an altruistic will? Are there reasons for love? 

This is an MA course co-taught with Professor Julien Deonna, in French. Syllabus available upon request.


Topics in Feminist Philosophy, University College London

The aim of this course is to develop students’ reading, understanding and essay writing skills through engagement with key texts and topics in Feminist Philosophy. The course is divided in three parts – Gender Oppression, Epistemology & Emotions and Political Philosophy & Ethics - which each lasts three weeks. Part I introduces tutees to theorizing about gender oppression. Students will engage with canonical texts where popular terms such as ‘oppression’ and ‘intersectionality’ will be demystified and contextualized. Tutees will then engage with both classic as well as contemporary pieces on the nature of gender. In Part II tutees will consider the feasibility and epistemic benefits of occupying ‘standpoints’. Particular attention will be paid to the emotional responses that may accompany such standpoints, most notably justified anger. In Part III students will tackle three classic issues in feminist thinking in turn: multiculturalism, prostitution and pornography.

This is a first year undergraduate course taught in the tutorial style. Syllabus available upon request.


Emotions: From Mind to Morals, University College London
​
The aim of this course is to get students to engage seriously with canonical as well as recent work in the philosophy of emotion. The particular focus of the course will be the ‘rationality’ of emotions. To approach this topic, we will need both to consider theoretical issues such as the nature of emotions and their associated epistemology as well as practical concerns such as their role in our daily and political lives. The course comprises 3 sections, each of which will span 3 weeks. Section 1 focuses on three influential theories of emotion. Section 2 focuses on what emotional rationality might amount to. While the discussions in these two sections tend to be about emotions in general, in Section 3 we will focus on one emotion in particular, anger. We will consider how what we have covered so far may apply to anger and its political value. Some guiding questions are therefore: What are emotions? In what sense or senses can we rationally assess emotions? And how do such questions bear on the political value of anger?

This is an advanced undergraduate course taught in the tutorial style. Syllabus available upon request

As ​Seminar Leader

​Duties include running seminars where material delivered in the
lecture is discussed inclusively and digested; first marking all final
essays; providing additional educational resources and one-to-one
​office hours with students

           
​          Philosophy of Psychology
Focusing on the implications of experimental work in the brain and behaviour sciences for topics in moral psychology. Topics included: Free will, moral motivation and addiction. 
​Advanced final year undergraduate module, KCL. 
Taught spring 2017

            Feminism and Philosophy
Weekly topics ranging from metaphysics and epistemology to political philosophy and applied ethics, with the following question ever-present in the background: what is the relationship between feminism and philosophy?
Advanced final year undergraduate module, UCL. 
Taught autumn 2017 and spring 2016

            Descartes and Hume
Close text readings of Descartes' Meditations and Hume's Treatise​​.
First year undergraduate module, UCL.
Taught autumn 2015.