John Rosenberg

jI'll cut down the redundancy and agree that most of the previous reviewers for Rosenberg have hit the nail on the head regarding his teaching style in class. But seriously - how many other professors will you encounter have such a deep understanding and appreciation of the classics, arts, and literature? After all, you're being taught by the dude who wrote John Ruskin's biography and turned his analysis of Tennyson's "Idylls of the Kings" into something akin to a religious text. Yeah, he repeats himself from time to time. Yeah, he does pick and choose favorites (and in my experience, he seems to favor the ladies more - I guess chivalry ain't dead in Rosenberg's turf). Yeah, he doesn't like it when people don't do the reading (but thankfully, he never gave our class pop quizzes. But if you are one of the fortunate freshman to have been placed in his section, I urge you to give Rosenberg a chance. He'll definitely challenge, if not change, your perspective from the Iliad to the Bible. Gradewise - I felt he was very generous with my final grade. I ****ing flipped out when I got my first midterm back (somewhere in the B+ range, which nearly gave this pre-med a heart attack). But as the semester dragged on, I appreciated more and more his "fluid" grading style. A lot of Lit Hum teachers will tell their classes that this midterm/paper/quiz/final/etc is worth a certain percentage of…

I had the pleasure and the privilege of taking several courses with Professor Rosenberg. He's brilliant, truly.

Professor Rosenberg definitely is the realization of the traditional academic. Very deliberate and soft-spoken with this quiet manner and affectionate treatment of each poem. He really emphasizes the sentiment and experience of each poem rather than the versification and structure. Of course he'll mention the latter and delve into it as well as entertain your explorations. But you can tell his passion is the sentiment and feel of the poem rather than dry semiotics. I still can't tell if his drawl was British or Southern. I'm sure most students were afraid to ask questions so as not to appear uninformed or waste his time, but he'll happily field any question in class and even more so in his generous office hours. He really wants you to interact more or ask more detailed questions in class and office hours. Meeting with him will definitely help your participation and probably your grade. The only time he showed some frustration or disappointment was when we couldn't pick up the Hamlet and Shakespearean references in Tennyson. He dryly said, "Well, kiddies, it's from Hamlet." But in all fairness, I guess we deserved that.

This is a pretty good course, for the most part. The syllabus is engaging, and Prof Rosenberg, although he can be overly slow and laid-back at times, is pleasant to listen to. His lectures vary in quality, but he always manages to adequately communicate the important points in the reading, particularly when closely analyzing texts. Furthermore, his sense of humor and aesthetic perceptiveness make each class very enjoyable, even if it may not be tremendously stimulating.

Prof. Rosenberg is an old school literature professor. Think "stereotypical Ivy League". While some of what he says/emphasizes is a little trite/repetitive (he often repeats himself from class to class to class...), other points that he has about the texts are extremely insightful. He whips through the required readings at the speed of light, so be prepared. If you want to do well in the class, be sure to dominate the discussions of the books early in the semester; later on, Rosenberg will primarily rely on those people who contributed to class discussions a lot in the beginning of the semester. One of Rosenberg's pet peeves is people not reading the assigned readings. If you didn't read the book, either skip class, Sparknote, or just sit/take notes/be quiet, because if he catches you, he will not hesitate to harshly reprimand you in front of the class. If he catches any one person in the class who has not read the book, he'll start pop quizzes. (and will institute them for the rest of the semester faithfully, which is annoying)

GREAT PROFESSOR. Really sweet, incredibly smart, and very willing to help you out. This class was really interesting, even though the reading was a little boring and dense at times. Rosenberg is a great guy and seems to know just about everything.

Professor Rosenberg should have lived in the mid-19th century. He's the embodiment of a learned Victorian gentleman: vastly knowledgeable, widely read, and possessed of an indefinable accent that seemed to be a combination of Coastal Southern America and Oxfordian English. Yes, he's a little slow at times - never boring, just slow - but his insights are remarkable. He's not going to make you love 19th century British poetry if you don't already, but he'll make you respect it, which might be the harder task. Proof in point: I left with a grudging appreciation of Tennyson. Now that's a good professor.

After I realized that Professor Rosenberg was reading all of his lectures word for word off a thick sheaf of handwritten pieces of looseleaf, I was about to drop the class like a hot potato. But within a few weeks I found that it was my favorite class- he ruthlessly emphasizes close reading and spends entire class sessions on a few verses of Tennyson or a paragraph of Ruskin. I learned transferrable skills: what English major doesn't need to close read, while in other English classes I just learned broad thematic and forgettable material about American national identity or imperialism or whatever. It can be slow though, there is little class participation and unless you hit up his office hours he won't know your name. Full of genuine insights and sardonic little comments. I love this class...once I gutted through the first few weeks.

Professor Rosenberg is a good -- not great -- teacher. As many of you may have noticed, the end of the semester tends to bring a certain nostalgia, which I think many of the reviewers under me may have been suffering from. Professor Rosenberg is most assuredly brilliant, and his incredibly insightful comments counted quite a bit towards my enjoyment of the class. But at 9 in the morning, his slow and somewhat monotonic speech did not help my 4-hours-of-sleep induced somnolence. He is, however, *extremely* nice, and probably the sharpest 83 year old I have ever met. He is also a no-bullshit kind of guy -- if you give him one of those vague, I-haven't-read-the-book-so-I'm-just-gonna-make-some-shit-up answers, he will shoot you down for it, just like you deserve. Another (previously mentioned) issue with his class is that the essay and test questions tend to be extremely simple. He would ask the kind of questions that were apparent from the second you read the book ("What is the significance of blindness in Oedipus Rex?"). While this may sound like a good thing (simple equals easy, after all), It actually made things more difficult, because you find yourself struggling to give a meaningful answer when the obvious (and clearly oft-repeated) one is looming so large. The trick to doing well in Professor Rosenberg's class is to show him early on -- via class participation -- that you…

John D. is the man. Period. An acquired taste, quiet and mellow, but the knowledge he shares, along with the love of learning, is a treasure. Take anything he offers.