Margaret Vandenburg

One of the best classes I have taken in my four years. Professor Vandenburg is a great professor, seamlessly weaving in philosophy, psychology, and history into our discussions of literature, and making those topics accessible to her students. Most impressively, she is unfailingly kind. She is never condescending to her students and always generous in her discussion leadership. I would take this class again if I could.

TAKE TIPPING POINTS! Margaret makes you think twice about everything you thought you knew. She is a tough grader, but she offers criticism to make you strengthen your argument instead of change it to match her beliefs (which is pretty rare). She genuinely cares about all of her students and took us to the Whitney at the end of the semester. She is an amazing professor and I hope to take more courses with her in the future!! All these CULPA reviews are true-take MARGARET'S class and worship her like the goddess she is!

Professor Vandenburg is extremely knowledgeable, and an enjoyable professor. However, class discussions can tend be incredibly complex for Ciritcal Writing, a course meant to be introductory. Additionally, she is a relatively hard grader. With all of these things considered, her class will definitely be challenging, but as an introduction to the English major, formative.

This is the best First Year Seminar in the entire world. I found a community at Barnard through the class and still spend time with the peers I met in my seminar. Vandenberg is an angel sent to this world to teach and give extremely valuable insight. Take her course!!

Professor Vandenburg is fun to study with and whether you agree with her readings or not, you will learn a lot about literary theory and the historical moment from which each of the texts emerged. SheÂ’s funny, brilliant, and approachable. She welcomes other points of view, and appreciates them, especially when they make her reconsider her own point of view. I feel like many people who condemn Vandenburg never took the opportunity to voice their own points of view. She welcomes them, and she will not belittle anyone no matter how ridiculous their interpretation/insight happens to be. If you strictly adhere to purely literal readings, you might not like her method. She tends to find an entirely new layer to the novel that most people do not see reading it once. But, that is why I loved her class. Who isnÂ’t sick of listening to students regurgitating obvious conclusions theyÂ’ve come to after reading a novel once through while the professor nods approvingly? If you actually do the readings and go to class, I promise you will come out of most of the classes feeling like you know so much more about the novel than you did immediately after reading it. If you are skeptical that there is anything worthwhile in the American literary canon, take this class. Granted, some of the early texts were tedious, i.e. Theodore DreiserÂ’s Sister Carrie and, at times, Edith WhartonÂ’s House of Mi…

Ok, to put it simply, I agree with all of the positive things said about Prof. Vandenburg and this class. She's incredible, brilliant and she values other opinions. The people who complain on and on about her "narrow" or "incorrect" beliefs regarding the modern authors and their works are a bit to sure of themselves, and their remarks don't make sense to me considering the way Vandenburg approaches teaching. Vandenburg loves it when you disagree with her, and say something intelligent to back up your own theory. She'll say, "I think you're right...that's interesting because if you look at it that way then..." In fact, I remember numerous occasions on which she scribbled something down as a student said it because of how interesting she thought it was. So, I don't really see how people can complain about not agreeing with her ideas...that's perfectly welcome in her class...in fact, I'd say it's rewarded. More often than not, I found myself agreeing with her, and one of her main criticisms of my work was that I was ready to move on to even more unique readings...and trust me, hers are tough enough to wrap your head around. Coming up with something completely original and completely ground-breaking to say about these authors was a bit out of my scope...though I found Vandenburg's insights fantastic. So, as for the reviewers who think they know it all, and who feel the need to tel…

1) PLEASE NOTE that this teacher is possibly THE most overrated teacher at Barnard. 2) She is still a great teacher and her classes are stimulating 3) If you hate suck-ups then dont take this class, in my opinion vandenburg loves them. 4) she is reluctant to give A's on papers and grades somewhat on the harsh side 5) She is incredibly difficult to reach outside of class as she is a very popular teacher on campus 6) If you go into this class disliking any early american literature, you will leave the class appreciating and understanding the books

i would be lying if i said she wasn't a great prof, because her lectures and critiques improved my writing a LOT. the readings were a lot, but i got through the class without reading about 1/2 of them. throughout the sem we had a bunch of conferences for the papers, but for each one i remember leaving her office on the verge of tears because of her criticism that was meant to help, but hurt even more. hey, if you ever liked getting stabbed in the heart with a bouquet of flowers, she's your kind of teacher.

This class was semi-enjoyable for a non-English enthusiast. We had reading assignments due every class which I found manageable, but I found out many of my classes didn't even do them and then talked about the books like they did. Vandenburg has a dry sense of humor and takes the class seriously. I found her to be semi-intimidating because of this, but she honestly really cared about her students and scheduled many out-of-class conferences with us, and contacted me by phone several times to discuss a topic I was unclear on. She's not an easy grader by any stretch of the imagination, but I feel that my ability to read deeply into works and write strong papers greatly improved over the course of the class.

As an English major, this was a class I definitely don't regret taking. That being said, I don't think I will ever take a class with Professor Vandenburg again. While I learned a lot about literary theory and the reading list is extraordinary, Professor Vandenburg is too set on a specific way of analyzing texts, to the extent that her analysis can become repetitive and--to some members of the class--slightly ridiculous. For instance, I heard a number of people outside of class criticize how she looks at everything from a Lacanian, poststructuralist or Freudian perspective. Don't get me wrong, Professor Vandenburg is clearly brilliant and knows what she's talking about, but sometimes it felt like every single text on the syllabus was exactly the same. One of my biggest qualms with the class was that Professor Vandenburg doesn't lecture a lot and instead relies on people's comments to conduct the class. This often led to a very dynamic class. However, sometimes, members of the class would feel the need to discuss the texts using Vandenburg's terms and ideas, and most of the time, they would have no idea of what they were talking about. So, in conclusion, yes, you should take this class, as Professor Vandenburg is extremely smart, the texts are fantastic and the lectures/discussions are often engaging and interesting. However, realize that Professor Vandenburg's perspective is no…