Critical Approaches in Social and Cultural Theory · Women'S And Gender Studies
Easy about 40 pages of reading each week Two 3-4 page response papers 8-10 page Midterm 10 page research Paper as Final
One take home midterm, one open book final. Two papers.
Only two assignments the whole semester (besides readings): Midterm paper and final project. Both took a lot of time but Jakobsen is very helpful. I knew nothing at all about what was going on in class but I really enjoyed writing my midterm paper, and with Janet's help, it turned out pretty well. Both the paper and the project can be about whatever you want them to be about as long as you connect them to two or three readings. I loved these assignments, honestly.
Workload is very feasible with weekly readings and weekly discussion posts (which take a couple of minutes to fill out)
As a first generation, low income, student of color I have never felt so uncomfortable during office hours with a professor as I did with Pittman. Pittman was very condescending when I met with him during office hours, because of this I never went back. I told him I was confused with something on the midterm and his responds was that it is very straightforward, which is not something you should tell a confused student. Not to mention I asked a question about a specific term on the midterm and he asked me how I took my notes. I was shocked that he would ask me this. I felt that he was assuming that I was lazy, not taking my notes, or not trying in the class at all. I became even more upset about this experience, when the during the next class period, another student, a white student, asked the same question I did during office. Suddenly, the question was no longer a dumb question and it turned out the whole class was confused. This experienced made me feel very disrespected, I thought I was dumb and thought I was the problem, and no student should feel this way. Pittman needs to have a conversation over how he treats students of color and FLI students, especially because he seems to overly pride himself as being an equitable professor. Pittman talks too fast during lecture and tries to put too must information in one lecture. This is not a good combination with a class that dis…
Neferti Tadiar is an amazing teacher and lecturer. She is not afraid share her opinions in class and is an overall awesome professor who texts Angela Davis because they are friends. Even though this is a women's studies class, I feel like I read so many seminal words related to gender, race, identity, colonialism, and globalization. The concepts I learned from reading Marx, Althusser, Fanon, etc. I was able to apply in a number of different classes. This class should not be a lecture, because there is almost no discussion on really provocative topics, the large number of people mean that the grading isn't too bad. Just make sure you meet with the TAs about paper topics (you can literally write about anything -- I wrote a paper on racist sororities).
Professor Jakobsen is brilliant and so so knowledgable. I think this class would be wonderful for someone interested in philosophy and culture and super academic stuff. DO NOT take this class if you are not really really incredibly interested in dense, philosophical reading. I am an econ major and I wanted something interesting.... this was far from what I was hoping for. I literally had no idea what was going on the whole time. People in the class and prof Jakobsen would reference people and ideologies that I had never heard about and these references were rarely explained. Definitely look over the syllabus and then make a decision about this class. Great classroom environment though, and Prof Jakobsen really is a gem.
The content of this course was of a wide variety, and it was quite informative and intriguing. I have loved every lecture and discussion section, and it was such a wonderful class. It takes you through the history of critiquing society, starting with Marx and then developing to the modern world.
Very heavy readings. 2 short response papers, a midterm long paper and a final paper.
A lot. Weekly readings of at least 100 pgs that you have to put a lot of effort into. 2 reading response papers (first is 4 to 5 pages, second is 5 to 7 pages) that connect concepts across the readings and relate them to a contemporary example. The midterm is what others have said - 8 pages give or take that answer three questions (about two pages per question). The final is a bit daunting - 3 hours and she doesn't give you the questions beforehand and there are a bunch of essays, but at least its open book.