Casey Blake

Professor Blake is great – which is exactly why I wish he spoke up more in class. Classes begun with a short biographical lecture and (often) a video or piece of art to center the conversation. After that Prof. Blake mostly would just call on students. To be fair, the course is a seminar, so it probably should be student led mostly, but I was hoping for him to interject and steer the conversation with more direction. The course also felt slightly directionless, dropping in media res into a discussion of the art world. I would recommend this course, but I felt like I maybe would have gotten more out of it had I taken it after Art Hum, although no prior knowledge is needed. The syllabus for this course was great, especially when it was more philosophy heavy (the biographies we read were OK).

An INCREDIBLE class. This is the course for anyone who genuinely wishes to understand American culture. Countless times I walked out of Professor Blake's lecture truly moved. He gives so much time and energy to our past, viewing it holistically. His appreciation and love for history can be felt throughout the lecture hall. Along with the lecture, discussion sections were seriously stimulating. I found myself reviewing the texts before I went to recitation just so I could keep up with the other students (I took this class as a freshman). I worked my ass off in this class, so don't expect to get an A if you don't. If you are an American Studies major (which you should be), you MUST take this class. It is phenomenal.

Casey Blake deserves a good and recent review, so I'll offer one now. Prof. Blake is outstanding. He's not particularly funny (until you get to know him); he doesn't go for cute effects or snarky commentary. Instead, he pretty much stands at his lectern, looks out at the class, and lectures. But if you're serious about your intellectual and academic pursuits, if you care not only about what you're doing but also about what you're thinking, and how, and why, Prof. Blake is the man for you. He's wildly smart; he's articulate; he's kind and caring. His lectures are well-organized (he projects an outline overhead), and if you've done the reading, easy to follow. His reading assignments (for both Intellectual History and Am. Cultural Criticism) are perfectly reasonable in page numbers--maybe even on the light side for a history class--though they tend to be dense and intellectually challenging, so they take a while. If you commit to doing the readings before class and to giving them the attention that they deserve, the lectures are interesting, the discussion sections are engaging, and the exams are reasonable. His papers are certainly challenging, but only because they require you to totally understand the material and to think creatively and analytically about it. Prof. Blake takes his classes very seriously, and he expects you to do the same. Food, computers, phones, and tardine…

Casey Blake is just really really smart. Other reviewers have observed that he's not an extremely enthusiastic lecturer, and although this is kind of accurate, he is definitely passionate, and this makes him a very compelling lecturer. He is just so extraordinarily knowledgeable. The course is taught along with Professor Spiegel, with the intention that he covers more of the history side and Professor Spiegel does more of the film and literary analysis, but I found that Professor Blake's commentary on the books and movies were often more brilliant than Prof Spiegel's. Intro to American Studies is truly unlike any other class, simply because it engages with so many mediums. One week, we will divide class time between a history lesson and a discussion of a film from the time period, and the next week, we will spend the entirety of both classes discussing a novel we read. At times this class is a history class, at times it’s a literature class, and at times it’s a film class. And walking into class, I would never know which one I was going to get that day. I would like to tell you that all these different mediums came together seamlessly, but that’s just not the case. To be honest, the class just wasn’t very consistent. At times it was my favorite class. Really. During some classes, I would just sit there thinking, “I love this. This is the best class ever. Other times, however,…

This is a fantastic course, especially for seniors looking for interest discussions, readings, and to take more of a role in their learning. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2023 Course: AMSTUN3930_001_2023_3-TOPICSINAMERICANSTUDIES : AMSTUN3930_001_2023_3 - TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES Instructor: James Shapiro

How to work a massive project/Write a heavy paper. Time management. The impact such a project takes on your body/mind.

I almost slept on this class, and it ended up being one of the highlights of my time at Columbia, so I feel like I owe it a detailed review. If you are interested in literary non-fiction, aesthetics and art criticism, or just reading the back pages of the New Yorker, you’ll probably enjoy most of this syllabus, which goes from Walt Whitman to Lionel Trilling to Robert Warshow to Ralph Ellison to Susan Sontag. A few of the central texts were John Dewey’s Art as Experience, Ruth Benedict’s Interpretation of Culture, and Constance Rourke’s American Humor. We also discussed Andy Warhol, John Cage’s 4”33’ ,and LeRoi James’ treatise on the Blues, among other artistic projects from the 20th century. You’ll learn a little about the avant-garde, a little about the mid-century Partisan Review(-adjacent) cultural critics and their interaction with the political Left, and a little about the intellectual histories of Harlem and Columbia. The syllabus for this class truly runs the disciplinary gamut (history, philosophy, political science, anthropology, art history, and film studies), but is pegged on a couple of thru-line inquiries about the relationship between art and class & culture, and its particular role in a diverse and pluralistic society. Professor Blake started each seminar discussion with a short lecture on the readings at the beginning of each class, which were usually suppleme…

U.S. Intellectual History was a super interesting class. As a history major, I've done a lot of history, but I'd never really looked at the history of ideas as they flowed through the events that happened, so it gave me a cool new perspective on why things in post-Civil War American history happened the way they did. Casey Blake is a great professor. He really knows what he's talking about, and always made a point to include interesting little things in lecture to keep the class alive (as--and he admitted this himself--it could get a little dry sometimes). He was also really kind and helpful in office hours, interested in helping students refine paper topics and re-explaining topics from lecture. The readings in this class did get a little long and were sometimes kind of dry, but the only way you could succeed in this class was by actually sitting down and doing them. If you hadn't done the readings, you weren't able to follow what was happening in lecture, and you also looked like an idiot in section (where, because they were so small in size, it was impossible to fly under the radar). But actually getting through all of them did, in the end, make me a better and more educated person. The TAs were REALLY nitpicky when it came to writing, and would count you down on both papers and exams for spelling/grammar errors, structure, and word choice as well as ideas. This could be re…

Prof. Blake's classes are enjoyable and informative. I personally think that one of his best assets as a teacher is his ability to take broad topics about American history and organize them into smaller, more manageable units that allow his students to explore a particular topic in-depth while also learning overarching themes that can be applied to other areas. Prof. Blake is enthusiastic about a wide variety of forms of cultural expression, and likes to integrate media studies, art history, film, history, politics, and sociology into his lessons. Another plus is his willingness (and even eagerness) to hear what his students have to say. He encourages lots of class participation, and naturally expects that his students have devoted considerable time and attention to their readings and papers.

It is a lot of work, a lot of reading especially, but if you're willing to put in the time and really engage with the material, the course will help you see the world through a different lens. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2021 Course: AMSTUN3930_002_2021_3-TOPICSINAMERICANSTUDIES : AMSTUN3930_002_2021_3 - TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES Instructor: James Shapiro