Hamid Dabashi

After being placed into Professor Dabashi’s Lit Hum section, I seriously considered dropping it before the first class because of all the terrible reviews online, but I am SO glad I stayed. By the end of the year, I realized that this was probably one of the CHILLEST Lit Hum sections to be in, and honestly, everyone I talked to from other sections was jealous of ours (practically everyone got A/A+ and by the end people literally stopped showing to class up bc he did not care). Professor Dabashi constantly says that his Lit Hum section is his “pride and joy” and that it is the best section, and at first I completely rolled my eyes at that. But after a full year with him, I honestly understood what he meant. The structure of the class is very relaxed. Every session, he assigns a group of three students to present on roughly half of the reading, and that presentation usually turns into a broader class discussion, although, realistically, he ends up doing most of the talking and we sit and listen. His lectures are often more philosophical, historical, and story-based rather than close textual analysis, which makes the atmosphere much less intimidating than a typical Lit Hum class. You are not sitting there getting cold-called on obscure details from page 247 or being grilled over literary devices every five minutes. That being said, if you are someone who genuinely loves literary…

Never seen Game of Thrones before, I took the class as I know how much of a cultural icon Game of Thrones is and how it is a reference point to other types of media. I have a friend who took the class and he warned me not to take the class and I have another friend who really enjoyed it. I needed the class for a Global Core class as well as it was one of the most desired classes at Columbia. The class like many of the other reviewers said is very unorganized. Even my TA made comments during our discussion section on how disorganized the class felt. Professor Dabashi is a kind man and he really cares to know the students and is extremely passionate a lot about the material. With that said, his directions and requirements for the essays could be more specific. The course content I find rather interesting as I like those this like literature, philosophy, culture, history, etc. It felt like Lit Hum with a bit of Game of Thrones. My biggest critique is the lack of structure and clarity in assignments.

Interesting class that has really opened my mind to different ways of thinking. Dabashi repeatedly says this is not a class for "use"- it's not a specific skill set to be applied. And I came to really enjoy that. Zero technology allowed in class and he fucking means it. He does his whole lecture from his mind in conversation and technology apparently distracts him and his students from engaging. Very low work load- just reaching a few chapters a week for section and in mine we did a 5 minute casual presentation twice. A book review midterm paper from the syllabus list and a final paper 10-12 pages. Just show up sit down and listen. Sometimes Dabashi can ramble a little, but in general a very interesting critical class.

Dabashi shows off his knowledge as often as he can. At first it is engaging but it gets tiresome very quickly, especially since he spirals into long soliloquys about irrelevant topics to the class. Coming into the course, I was really looking forward to getting some basic, knowledge of Islamic civilization since i had very little coming in. I don't feel like I got that knowledge here. he's a very poor instructor and pretty much assumes you will get something out of what he's talking about. He's not very interested in bring there, except when he gets to talk about his own politics. He really slips into irrelevant topics a lot, things he is passionate about but which will make you roll your eyes after just a couple of lectures. It's also very easy for him to put his opinion up on a pedestal and to talk about how amazing it is. You get the idea pretty fast that he's not giving you a very wide scope of view points. He doesn't really get into theological differences between sunnis and shiites or the history of conflict between the two. He is pretty fixated only on modern Arab and Iranian politics as it relates to Israel and the US. When he scratches the surface he fails to avoid talking about his own political opinions. He is incredibly bias professor. It's a real mind-suck for the middle of the afternoon (I took the 2:40-3:55 class). You would be better off taking an intro course…

Worst class I have ever taken. Dabashi clearly has some kind of big-shot rep, but this class was no evidence for why. I have seen Facebook posts from him that show more effort than this entire class. This class was pain, and everyone spent the entire thing on Facebook He arrives with no notes whatsoever, says 'What are we doing today?' and riffs on a couple sentences unhelpfully for the rest of the class. There is no structure or substance. The syllabus was a hilariously ambitious list of history books, films, poetry collections, books and blogs - none of it organized by date or session, in no particular order, and with no excerpts, just whole works. Some of this impossibly large collection of assignments was at Book Culture - I bought the books; we ended up never reading them. We were, however, apparently meant to read things that were out of print, unavailable from Butler, or from Book Culture, or anywhere in New York. Dabashi would say things like 'Isn't it all on the internet? You'll find it.' At any rate, that didn't really matter, because the class's absurd 'presentation' format meant we were never accountable for doing the reading anyway. The class was entitled 'Film, Fiction, Poetry, History'. We spent about half the class on history and about half on film - or rather, on Dabashi's book about film, with no watching of the actual films, apparently. Fiction was barely sk…

Professor Dabashi is clearly more interested in himself than in his students, as a quick glance at his website will make apparent. The readings for Theory and Culture are very interesting. I thought this course could have been as valuable as CC, covering a wide range of canonical texts. I did not anticipate Dabashi's incompetence as a lecturer. He frequently missed class, and on one occasion waltzed in and asked the students what he was supposed to be lecturing about. He is the classic case of a professor caught up in himself and academia, paying little attention to the--what's it called again--real world, which probably explains his obsession with the phrase "fictive imagination." That being said, he is clearly intelligent, and his lectures were occasionally interesting. I just wished he actually focused on the texts instead of rambling about more or less the same thing every class.

I had Dabashi for "Colonization: Film, Fiction, History, Theory." The class had around 15 students and was heavy on the discussions-- a high point for some students, not so much for others. Dabashi seemed to have seldom prepared for class. Sometimes this leant itself to his mystique as a brilliant-- and I do mean brilliant-- off the cuff academic who could weave together anecdote, hermeneutics, and political economy in a way that was as much poetry as prose. Sometime he would lapse into a tired, familiar story and impose these immense pauses on the class while he fumbled to connect the ends of his argument. It was hard to tell at the beginning of class which kind of day it was. Inconsistencies aside, Dabashi put together a memorable syllabus and created an engaging atmosphere with a lot of intellectual lateral. His ideas are provocative, durable, and (surprisingly) productive. I couldn't help but quote him up over the winter break and friends were definitely intrigued. WIth that said, I'm not really interested in taking another course with him. I think I got all I can from him this past semester, and I would guess that he would start to repeat himself. All in all, If you like discussion-based classes and can endure a sometimes bumbling, sometimes brilliant professor; if you're interested in understanding the colonial project as more than economy but not circumscribed by writer…

Prof. Dabashi is the WORST professor I have had at Columbia. In our seminar of only 10 students, he couldn't even be bothered to learn everyone's names, and always started class late. He often seemed distracted and unprepared, frequently not even knowing what reading he had assigned to us. The class itself was a waste, for all we did in class was compare a micro reading of the Persian version to the English translation. *Every* single class. This was not supposed to be a class on translation! And it was evident he had not read the English translation because each time he'd ask us how it went. Did he even put any time into teaching this class? His arrogance is astounding as well. Making time for students is not something he likes to do, it seems. Keeping his office hours did not seem to be important to him, for I went twice during his "official" office hours and he wasn't there. Another time I went to see him during his hours, he was on his way out the door and seemed quite peeved to be interrupted by a student. He assigned us to write a proposal for our paper topic for him to review and approve, but two weeks later still had not returned them to us. How were we supposed to get started on our papers? More frustratingly, the only grade for the class was the paper, but he gave no firm guidelines for what he expected in the paper, only that we should "have fun with it" and make it…

Professor Dabasi may be brilliant but he is also an ego-maniac who is rude and condescending even to the female professor that he was co-teaching with. He shows up late and then yells at people who have to leave early. The class required no knowledge of Persian/Farsi and yet most of the handouts were in Persian and he said find them in English. When the class informed him that none of us could find it...he said...oh well you don't need it....well if I am paying a shit load of money for a class...I personally want all of the materials. He treated those of us who were not Iranian like idiots..like none of us could have a clue about Islam or Iran. He would stop every five minutes and ask us if we knew what the Qur'an was...or ulama...it was so irritating that I left the class and was even willing to pay half if I had to. Luckily I got out right under the wire. If you are inspired by teachers who get off on their own intelligence and treat you like shit...well by all means he is your guy. If you are a stronger person than me...He really is brilliant...when he wants to be...I recommend reading his literature and essays...instead of actually taking his class.

I want to disagree with the last reviewer and say that of all the classes I took this semester, I learned most in Dabashi's class. His tangential ramblings are like gold, and you will learn simply by sitting there listening to him deconstruct something like "Spider-Man." He does come off as pretty caustic and seems to enjoy silencing students, but he is also a very nice person. He often smiles and says funny things. But yes, if you are not a comp lit major or a freshman, do not take this class--not because it will be too difficult for you but because you are douche for wanting to take a seminar only sophomore majors are supposed to take. But Dabashi is AWESOME, so take other classes offered by him, even if it has nothing to do with your major.