Anupama Rao

I was aware that this class would have a heavy workload, as I had taken a similar global core course before. My interest in learning about my heritage made me overlook this aspect. God was I mistaken. This course has been the worst I've ever encountered at Columbia, and Rao is the worst professor I've had. to begin, she merely reads from papers throughout the class, presenting material that is excessively complex for a global core class. The weekly readings are daunting, often exceeding 100 pages. Moreover, Rao's demeanor is condescending and unapproachable, highlighted by her sarcastic laughter that usually precedes dismissive remarks. Don't even waste your time going to her office hours. If you provide an incorrect answer, she belittles you, making her teaching approach feel nonexistent and unaccommodating to any issues students may have. I can't recall any significant material from her lectures that I hadn't already obtained through the readings. Her teaching assistants are no better, mirroring her lack of accommodation and support. There is no clarity on assignment rubrics or essay structures, leading to arbitrary grading. For instance, two students provided similar responses to essay prompts; one received a 68, and the other a 90, which is bewildering. For comparison, I am taking AP with Jae this semester and this class has been the most burdensome for me. I'm not sure if…

Professor Rao's teaching style in this course is extremely conversation based, following a Socratic method pretty strictly. She is an engaging and personable pedagogue that tries to take into account the personal experiences of her students – including past coursework and academic focuses – to inform the flow of the course. Be warned that she does practice "tough love" and is a firm believer in public class critique – Though Professor Rao is, in my opinion, one of the best instructors I've had at Columbia, I will advise that your experience in this course will ultimately depend on the personality and solidarity (or lack thereof) in your class group, especially during critique of digital presentations and research proposals.

If you're thinking about taking this class, ask yourself a few questions: - Do you enjoy reading a ton of very dense readings about very niche topics? We had ~100 pages/week on the low end, 300 on the high end. The readings are full of jargon and big words and aren't that informative -- rather they just go insanely in depth on specific topics like the census, Mughal taxation systems, fingerprinting, etc. - Do you prefer political theory or history? I'd argue that this class is misclassified, and should be in the Poli Sci or Philosophy dept. We barely saw any timelines, names, or dates. I couldn't tell you much about concrete events/history/people like the Partition, Nehru, or the Kashmir conflict but can go very in depth about the intellectual gatherings of landowing Muslims in the early 20th century. Rao is so smart that most of what she said went over my head, and I was grasping for straws as she was delving into the ideas and philosophies across time. If you're a high-level thinker with a strong foundation/knowledge in concrete events in Indian history and an insanely good vocabulary then this is a great class. If you're a regular plebian like me studying STEM, you might find yourself way out of your league and bored to death every class, since you don't understand much of anything, and since she is a PURE lecturer and rarely shows pics or videos -- she mostly just animated…

Professor Rao is easily the best, smartest professor I've had between Columbia and Barnard. She seems to know absolutely everything, down to the most obscure details and complex theories. She always encourages each person in the class to participate in the conversation, and she seems so genuinely interested in what you say. At times, she'll put you on the spot if she feels that something you said needs further explaining or if you haven't said anything at all. Very rarely will she disagree or say you're wrong, but if she does, you know you must really be off base. She's incredibly kind and encouraging, has a great sense of humor and just the right amount of snark. Yes, the class is a lot of work, but she really wants you to do well and not only to understand the information, but to enjoy it as much as she does. I think it would be hard not to be interested in what she's teaching in this class partially because of the subject but mostly because of the way that she teaches it. She has a really unique style of speaking and an even more unique way of approaching information. The spatial map project was very cool--she was very vague in giving directions, which she generally is not, but was also pretty lax when a bunch of us showed up with I-don't-know-what. She also does a thing when it's time for a graded assignment where each person in the class talks about his/her topic and then…

By far the best teacher I've ever had at Barnard. Rao's enthusiasm and rich vocabulary will make you jealous. She is downright inspiring. While I only took this class for a general requirement, I walked away with so much more. Take this class!

Professor Rao is extremely knowledgeable, really easy to get along with, and A great way to learn how to read theoretical historical texts. I didn't find her to be as tough as previous reviewers did. She is definitely more aware of the fact that her students have other classes and commitments outside of her classroom, but is deeply committed to stimulating nuanced discussions. At times the class discussion went on forever. Not the best class to take to get hard facts about South Asian history. Her approach is definitely a combination of anthropology and history.

Prof Rao is insane. And she's also one of the best professors I've had at Barnard. The readings were excellent, her lectures were amazing, the discussion was productive and on-point. This class is an excellent look at colonialism and post-colonialism in different areas of the globe: Batavia, South Africa, and Haiti, mostly. We read a mix of theoretical and historical/anthropological texts: the Wretched of the Earth, History of Sexuality, Country of My Skull, Avengers of the New World... all really fascinating, and Rao manages to tie everything together and create a coherent narrative throughout. Excellent!!

Though she is friendly, Anupama is probably the most insane teacher i have ever encountered. She assignes approximatley 3000 pages of reading for the semester, will add on random weekly discussion sessions that meet at 8 or 9 PM and are essentially just a third lecture for the week, and, best of all, will send you about 500 emails every day explaining new assignments and more readings that we are to do. Basically there are two things to know here. You will, based on the sheer amount of information that is pumped into you during her lectures, learn an unbelieveable amount from this woman. Yet at the same time, a term paper due the day after Thanksgiving, a 600 page coursepack along with 3 other mandatory books might really not be worth it. Don't think that i completley hated this class but i doubt it was really worth the whole effort

She will kill you if you aren't prepared to do the readings and spend hours and hours on the midterm and final. But hers was my favorite class at Columbia or Barnard. She is amazing -- brilliant, nice, approachable, understanding if you need an extension. I didn't find her to be such a hard grader. If you show that you're doing the reading and trying, you'll do well even if you're confused every lecture. I learned SO much in this class. The reading is dense and filled with untranslated terms but she will help you if you bring it up to her. Take a class with her before you leave.

This is an amazing class, really a gem in the history curriculum. Rao ties together a bunch of areas (South Asia, Indonesia, the Carribean, Africa, the US South ...) to present a bunch of different historical frameworks for understanding the development of capitalism out of colonial relations. CU's history department sucks at teaching theory -- Rao is the exception. So long as you have some background (i.e., read Marx in CC), you'll learn a lot about different narratives historians use to describe change. The discussions were fantastic -- Rao would start with a sometimes-overcomplicated description of some different thinkers or theories, and then the class would try and pick apart the reading. The readings themselves were long, dense, and heavily theoretical; a few really sucked, but most taught me a lot. Warning: you can't slack in this class, but if you're a history major, take it. Rao is an incredibly sweet woman who has her shit together, knows a ton about several regions and many areas of theory, and really cares about actually teaching, as opposed to just writing and getting famous (although her writing's good, too). And the prev. reviewer is right, she does talk like a postmodern valley girl.