Ezra Tawil

Ezra is a great instructor and relatively easy grader. He is very passionate and wants to connect with students. If you put in effort he notices. He is very sympathetic to the stresses of college students and works with them so they can succeed. Class can be kind of boring depending on how engaged you are in the conversation at hand. Also a note that he does not give the normal half-way through break but usually we got out early.

Fabulous fabulous fabulous fabulous fabulous. This is the best professor, and the best class I have encountered at Columbia so far. His excitement about literature and the subject carried over to us, and it was clear that because of him, just about everyone had done the readings for every class. We got a full sense of the history of feminism and all the texts he chose were fascinating. Respect, depth, and intellectual rigor were the marks of this class and of the environment Professor Tawil fostered. The seminar setting made for a great exchange of ideas, and by the end you knew each member of the class' intellectual personality. Tawil is a great facilitator of discussion, hilarious, endearing, and sensitive. Don't miss out.

Best lit hum teacher ever. Highly recommend. Very chill guy, super nice and funny. Leads pretty interesting class discussions and grades very fairly.

Ezra is one of the most chilled out instructors in the English Department - possibly even the entire university. Don't mistake his easygoing nature for intellectual laziness, though. He's passionate about his chosen area (pre-Civil War American lit) - perhaps not the most obviously fascinating field of study, but Ezra's dedication to his work and to his teaching made discussing even the most obscure texts provocative. The man could make studying sawdust interesting - he's that dynamic in a classroom. And I quickly learned to appreciate both obscure texts and the "greatest hits" from high school (think Hawthorne, Fenimore Cooper, Whitman, etc.). A great professor who makes the cultural aspects of pre-CW America seem fascinating and vital to current debates. Highly recommended

Ezra is a fantastic professor. Admittedly I only had him for the first semester of Lit Hum before he was forced to ditch us to teach a non-core class, but while he was here I truly enjoyed Lit Hum. Ezra has a great, quirky sense of humor and the welcome ability to lead insightful discussions that cover the important material without forcing his agenda. Ideas brought up by students were discussed in depth, and challenged in a productive manner. In addition, with each paper he attached nearly a full page of typed, single-spaced notes filled with dead on, incisive comments and suggestions to improve your writing. I really could not have asked for a better Lit Hum teacher.

Ezra is possibly the most enthusiastic professor I've ever had. When a professor gushes about Charles Brockden Brown or Melville as much as he does, you can't help but read a bit more carefully. In other words, his enthusiasm is contagious, and that makes for a good seminar. The reading list provides an excellent overview of the American "classics" (in quotes, since the premise of the class is to discuss how and why the American literary canon was constructed), as well as key works of criticism. Novels are alternated with criticism week by week. This is an excellent format--we could actually pay attention to criticism we might have overlooked if it had just been assigned as secondary reading. Ezra is extremely accessible and helpful at office hours, and for lack of a better adjective, he's, well, cool. I think most of the class probably wanted to be him.

Ezra is bar-none the best LitHum teacher at Columbia. After hearing countless horror stories of LitHum tyrants and sleep-inducing lecturers, I've realized the great luck I had when receiving Ezra as my professor. Not only is this man brilliant, friendly and fair, he has a genuine passion for the material that I believe to be rare among Core professors. Ezra didn't gloss over any of the readings, but focused equally and comprehensively on each one. He guided class discussions but did not dominate them and he has the ability to foster an incredible class dynamic where every student feels comfortable adding to the discussion. Being a science major, I very much appreciated his broad prespectives and coverage of the material. He is truly the type of professor that we all chose Columbia for.

Ezra is an amazingly energetic and interesting professor. He is everything but intimidating and humorously self-depracating so both lectures and visits to his office hours are really enjoyable. When it comes to this time period in American Literature, it might (for some) take quite a lot to draw someone's attention, but I think if you give it a chance he will do it for you. Ezra will surprise you with his fascination with the sentiments and the ways that Americans tried to define their nationhood through novels. He finds really unique ways to look at each novel and believe me, you won't see any of it coming. Most of the books on the reading list are pretty obscure and if you really want to get something out of the class it pays to read the novels and come to his lectures. I recommend it for American Studies majors interested in literature as well as English majors because it is a good introduction to the methods used to define a specific American quality in novels.

I do not have anything but praises for Ezra's teaching and for his enthusiasm in class. Having him as my lit hum professor really enhanced my first year in Columbia. He will teach you how to read a passage extensively and exhaustively (a positive and useful tool to have if you are thinking of attending other English classes in Columbia). As said, Ezra knows how to blend his own ideas with students' own and to lead Lit Hum with apparent ease. Having heard some of Ezra's comments in class, I am sure he is a great professor in a lecture setting as well. He certainly knows how to read a text carefully and insightfully and enthusiastically -- what more can you ask in a professor?

I don't know when (or even if) this course will be offered again, so i'll try to briefly summarize Prof. Tawil's style rather than any course specifics. One could do worse than to describe Tawil's approach to literature as historical; both his supplementary readings and bursts of enthusiasm reveal a sensitivity toward a piece of literature's status as a cultural document. Toward this--broadly speaking--cultural status of a given piece of literature, Prof. Tawil's mind is as open as 7-11. There is more to say, but I am tiring here by so eloquently stating my case. My experience in Prof. Tawil's course has made my choice of English as a major worthwhile.