Art History And Archaeology · Columbia University
On average there wasn't much work apart from doing the readings and attending discussion sections and classes (attendance is taken). There were two papers and two written exams. For the written exams, we were given 4-5 long-answer questions to prepare, out of which two showed up in the exam. The first paper was short and required only visual analysis, but the second one was longer and required research.
How to teach and practically work towards being a professor! As someone pursuing a career in academia, I was suprised how little support or training there is to prepare to teach students (generally speaking). This course is a great answer to that - to help me start thinking like an educator and with learning at the forefront of my ideas.
Attendance and participation: 20% Leading class (2 times): 10% each, 20% total One-page response papers (2): 0% each, 20% total Final presentation (10 minutes): 20% Final project (15-20 pages): 20%
I absolutely loved this class and the professor. Professor Bryan-Wilson is extremely knowledgeable and chose really fascinating topics for each class. The class had a good balance of discussion and lecture, and professor is good at engaging the students in the course content. She adds a lot of photos and videos to the presentations, but the slides have no notes, so you have to write down everything important. The readings are manageable and really interesting. You don't have to read them to understand what happens in class, but knowledge of them is required for the midterm and the final. Professor is really kind and empathetic to students, highly recommend her!
I learned how to unlearn and critically question everything that I have been taught through a feminist/queer lens.
Throughout the semester, there are four assignments. The first two are essays: the first essay is two pages long and involves a direct visual analysis. The second essay is an art research paper, which you have the option to complete as a conversation with another class member. Additionally, there is an in-class written midterm and a final exam. The instructor provides the questions ahead of time and is very clear about her expectations.
Technically, I learnt to design my own class and how to make my teaching more sensitive to all our differences, to prepare a lesson plan, and to moderate class discussions, but in reality I learnt so much more: how to support each other, how to support my students, and how a teacher can also be a human being in the classroom
She is an excellent teacher. Although I am not an art history major, this was my first art history class, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The course is very interesting, and she does a fantastic job of covering a wide range of topics throughout the semester. The class not only teaches you about art but also delves into history. All of the lectures are highly engaging and inspire you to learn more about the subjects discussed. It's not a class you can easily skip, as the only materials posted are slides with images. I definitely recommend taking this class.
This course ultimately set forth lots of important questions that I will continue to consider moving forward. I learned a lot from our conversations about not only how to craft a feminist syllabus, but also how to more broadly implement feminisms in the classroom setting. I learned a lot from my peers in addition to Professor Bryan- Wilson.
In this course, we learn practical skills such as considerations for building a syllabus, planning an appropriate amount of content for individual lectures, and aligning assessments with course objectives and goals. We are exposed to readings from outside traditional mainstream (or whitestream) feminism. Particularly useful to me were writings on Indigenous feminism and pedagogy. While the course centers around pedagogy, many of the readings assigned are useful for other projects I am working on at Columbia, including my own dissertation research.