ANTH V2014

The readings were useless and far too long, but as I said above, I did enjoy the midterm paper and quizzes.

"Now on to the real issue: I have never heard any prejudiced language from the TAs in this course, from either Natasha or Mark. Throwing out incendiary remarks is more than childish. It's hard to imagine that the person who penned the review is indeed, as they claim, a junior. They sound more like a scorned middle schooler who is out for revenge." ...I'm not sure where this reviewer was the whole semester. This class was a total nightmare and the attitudes of the TAs absolutely appalling. I agree with all reviews posted thus far except the one mentioned above. As for calling the comments of one reviewer "incendiary", I would note that the comments made by the TAs were far more incendiary than anything else I've heard at Columbia so far. I only disagree with the other reviews in that I do believe I actually learned one or two things this class. Yes, it made complicated issues far too simplistic and yes, some totally ridiculous comments were made, but the map of Africa quiz and the midterm paper really broadened my knowledge of the continent. That said, I probably could have learned the same amount (if not more) after an hour on sporcle or a single trip to the Museum for African Art. Zoe was wonderful but I don't think she shines in such an intro-level class. It seemed like she didn't know how to deal with some of the ludicrously uninformed (and often downright racist) comments…

2 short papers (responses to readings, attend 2 sections discussions along these lines) 1 midterm - 10 page paper on an object 2 map quizzes (TA Natasha managed to be condescending about this, too, regarding us not being able to handle the second one) 1 final - no idea what to expect since I feel like a lot of random info was thrown out at us, but the exam is supposed to be thematic

This course was one of the worst classes I have ever taken - if not the very worst class . I don't know why everyone before me is being so positive on Zoe. She's very sweet and loves the subject, but her lectures are incredibly disorganized. I have no idea what I was supposed to get out of the class about African archaeology, other than the general theme of white people sucking, which the TAs shoved down our throats repeatedly. Because of this emphasis, it felt like we never actually talked about African archaeology - just the Western gaze. One student late in the semester asked that we move on, take the western framing as a known fact and actually talk about Africa. Nope. TA Natasha shot her down, implying that our class was too dumb to get that point so we'd be addressing it as we had for the rest of the semester, i.e. talking about this and only this. Someone raised a point about this perpetuating stereotypes, and Natasha then said it wasn't archaeology's job to do anything, but rather to critique, since it's academic. Well, I won't go into this here, but archaeology has a huge political and cultural impact. Ignoring that is 1) ignorant and 2) extremely harmful when racially-charged comments are tolerated (i.e. treated as acceptable in class). TA Mark wasn't much better, also on more than one occasion pointing out the inferior minds of the students in our class. How is that…

Lots of reading. Minimal other work. Midterm paper. Final.

I both agree with and disagree with the previous post about this class. It could have used more structure, certainly. Many of the comments in class were a bit rudimentary, but this is a core, low-level class, and as such, the students in the class were not, by and large, Archaeology majors; they were taking thsi course to fulfill a requirement. Now on to the real issue: I have never heard any prejudiced language from the TAs in this course, from either Natasha or Mark. Throwing out incendiary remarks is more than childish. It's hard to imagine that the person who penned the review is indeed, as they claim, a junior. They sound more like a scorned middle schooler who is out for revenge.

Two to three esoteric and (sometimes) rather difficult archaeological readings per week. -one article was 30 pages of Ibn Battuta's travel account in Africa where half of the words were in arabic...not so helpful, Zoe. Attending two discussion sections with a two page written response to the articles. 10 page midterm research paper African political quiz (all countries and capitals) African landscape/geography quiz Final - answer three questions, must talk about the readings and say the authors name. [this is where my ability to generalize, which I learned in AP Euro, will come in handy]

The previous review was unfortunately made prior to today's class in which my personal favorite comment was made. *Discussing a wooden object that was found on an American plantation in which nails are driven into as a spiritual practice Zoe: "Who would be constructing this object? Think of gender practices and how it correlates to the previous ritual experiences exemplified in Africa." Female student: "Well it takes a certain amount of physical strength to drive a nail into wood; therefore, it was most likely made by a man because they have that physical strength." Umm, WHAT??? As a self-identifying male student, didn't you just try to make an argument revolving around an idea that females are physically weak and incapable of doing "mens' work". Well, god bless your soul on this final exam...and to think that it was safe to assume that we're in a post-feminism era. The hypocritical nature of this course is truly baffling. Unfortunately there was simply too much to cover, and every lecture became more and more vague. This class is NOT about human origins - take Jill Shapiro's class if that's what you're looking for. We only talked about Homo erectus and Homo habilis for 20 minutes! The presentation of each lecture became more and more sporadic. We would be talking about beads found at a random site in Southern Africa in the 8th century, then literally would jump to another obj…

(Not even the point.) 3+ dense anthropology texts a week, which are discussed in lecture 10 page midterm research paper (that was fun) 1 topographical quiz on Africa (major features) 1 political quiz on Africa (countries and capitals) final based on classes and facts from readings; "answer 3 out of the following 9 questions"

This is, without a doubt, the worst class I have ever taken at Columbia. First of all: the class tries to cover too much. No one-semester, undergraduate course can begin to cover even one segment of the African continent, never mind the entire history of the entire continent as a whole. Also, expect to be disappointed by your fellow Columbians: until I took this course (I am a junior), I was under the general impression that all Columbians are at least educated enough to understand that Africa is not a country. How wrong I was. Given that this is a core class that anyone can take, I do understand that many of the students don't have a working knowledge of either archaeology or the African continent. That said, this class really doesn't teach them a different way to think about material, but rather to parrot very simplistic cliches while fully maintaining their ignorance about non-American, non-European cultures. Some of the comments made in this class were just beyond belief. Here are some of my personal favorites: "But, like, black people can be racist too." "I think Africa needs more cities and, like, buildings. What do you guys think Africa needs?" "This Spanish king spoke with a lisp and then, like, all the other people started talking with a lisp too. Because they, like, wanted to copy him. Africans do that too." "Identity is based on DNA, not history." "This African soci…