John Gamber

Midterm exam, which was a joke. Long (8-10 page) paper, graded super duper harshly Final exam, which was a miserable experience

Gamber is glib, sarcastic, witty, funny, and well-rehearsed. He showed up to every class in a suite and tie, and his presentations were always perfectly prepared and executed. Despite that, things went wrong from day one: there weren't enough TAs for the course, so he had to cancel the mandatory discussion sections. This also meant he had to cancel one of the papers for the class. The books were all interesting, but Gamber really gives off the impression that he cares more about his research than his students. He flat out doesn't seem to care about reading the midterms. The midterm was writing three short essays on excerpts that were easy to identify if you came to lectures -- you didn't even need to read the books -- and was essentially graded on whether or not you 1) knew the title and author of the quote, and 2) could write more than one paragraph on it. Most of the students in the class seemed to get a perfect or near-perfect score. The paper, though, was graded incredibly harshly, and the final was impossible. Like the midterm, the final was quotes that were far more obscure, and even people who read all of the books (I read most of them, but not all of them) had trouble identifying them. Oh, and he also claimed that he automatically failed 15% of the class for not handing the paper in on time, no exceptions. So there's that as well. He doesn't really have time for bullsh…

This class was not good, and Professor Gamber does not (in any way) deserve a gold nugget. I don't know how many negative reviews he needs before CULPA changes that. Like many reviewers have already said, while the books and lectures were enjoyable, the lectures were only superficial and very rarely succeeded to expand my understanding of the text or of the issues at large. Truly all he did was dramatically read long quotes from the texts without any substantial analysis. He runs through many different literary elements that were present in the text without every really connecting them to issues of immigration/relocation or explaining them thoroughly. I have come out of this class not really knowing anything more about literature about movement than I did at the beginning. The assessments and grading were horrific. I understand that he had a problem at the beginning with his TA's, but that's really no excuse. It's absurd that the midterm essays were graded out of 5, with two of those points awarded for identifying the author and title. There absolutely should have been more than one paper, worth 40% of the final grade, so we could have improved our writing and more fully understood what the professor and TA's were looking for. The grading was very harsh, almost to an arbitrary extent. The final was god-awful, as others have already explained, despite the fact that I really did…

midterm (3 IDs & explain significance) - 30% paper - 40% final (20 quotes, ID 18 & explain how you ID'd them) - 30%

tl;dr: Gamber as a person = humorous, witty, all around a good guy. This class was a nightmare logistically and impacted the experience, but that was mostly beyond his control and is probably a one-time thing. More Global Core than English, great books, really tough paper, reasonable exams (though my opinion on the exams seems to be an outlier). Gamber's funny, knows his shit, isn't afraid to call people out on their bullshit, etc. He has flair & timing, so his delivery of his lectures were always great. The selection of books is great. I really enjoyed most of the novels, and managed to finish all of them because I genuinely wanted to. As for the class itself: a lot of things went wrong for it on the administrative side, unfortunately. They couldn't find enough TAs for the class, so mandatory recitations were cancelled. Because of this, the entire grading system had to be changed. Gamber was really frustrated by this; you could tell that this was not the way he wanted to teach the class. He believes lectures are the worst way to teach a humanities class, but he ultimately got stuck teaching a class that could only be a lecture. I think this definitely damaged what the class had the potential to be, but I also don't believe this should reflect badly of Gamber, when it was out of his control. Lectures would usually start with background on the novel. Then he'd pull a few quotes…

Midterm Exam: 30% Long Paper (8-10 pages): 40% Final Exam: 30%

I went into this class with a very open mind, and I was sorely disappointed. Pretty much everything about this class was terrible except for (a) the books and (b) the lectures (in terms of style, not content). To elaborate… First, this class is cross-listed as English and CSER, but don't be fooled. The class is not at all an English class -- it is basically a study of race using the books as jumping off points. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but don't expect high-level analysis of the texts. Second, on his lectures. He is a vivid speaker and quite lively, but the substance just isn't there. The class is structured so that every week is a different book, for the most part. Usually, he spends the entire first lecture or more on inconsequential things such as: the author (because the books are all recent, the author is often just a random adjunct professor at a random university -- who cares?—this often seems like he is trying to justify the importance of these obscure books and their authors), the historical background (again, it IS interesting, but not really related to how the class was presented), and the epigraphs (I'm sure we can all agree this one is a waste of time). After that hot mess, most of the lectures are him reading off slides. He is the kind of person that reads things emphatically and dramatically and believes it wholly alters the meaning of the words. In r…

-Book a week -Midterm (pretty mild) -Final paper -Atrocious final exam Canceled: Recitation sections and a shorter paper

I was really looking forward to this class, and for the most part enjoyed it, but I feel like something went wrong this semester. The books are incredible and the lectures worth attending; the way this class is graded is a mess. Gamber is a glib, charismatic, and thoughtful lecturer, and I never regretted coming to class. He's fun to listen to! He usually spends two days on each book, with the first lecture more focused on author/historical context and the second on plot/themes/language/etc. The syllabus is expertly crafted, with a good mix of more popular texts (Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) and things I had never heard of before (The Bird is Gone). I loved everything we read. If you’re an English major, it fulfills your American and Prose requirements as well as counting for Global Core, which is great. The way that this class was graded was really frustrating. One of the TAs dropped out at the beginning of the semester, so discussion sections were canceled. We were supposed to write a 5-page paper earlier in the semester that also got canceled, which put a lot more pressure on the midterm, final, and final paper. Midterm was fine—passage ID/short essay. Lots of options for the final paper topic, and TAs were really helpful, answering emails and holding extra office hours. (As far as I can tell, the TAs did all the grading in this class.) The final was awful. I’ve taken…