Matthew Connelly

Class: World History Since WWII This is a large class, and is taught old school lecture style. The material is very interesting- even non-history/liberal arts majors seemed engaged. Professor Connelly is obviously passionate about the material, and he's also quite funny. He leaves all assignment and grading responsibility to the TAs, so except for going to class I had no reason to have contact with him. At the beginning of class when I had questions about grades or assignments he immediately referred me to a TA.

A fine class -- really experimental. Connelly takes the time to get to know his students in the seminar. He can be at times discouraging regarding projects you propose, going so far as to tell you that he doubts you can do them. He doesn't mince words but I would hope that for future classes he will be more encouraging and trust that students know what they're doing, more or less. This is especially true since projects come up early. It may be more worthwhile to ask for proposals even earlier to allow more creativity and freedom. You can choose a paper or a technical project. Topics were fine: a broad overview of digital methods in historical research, usually one method each week, and its applications. Half the class dedicated to discussion, half to working on projects. Very enjoyable environment with a topic that attracts both history and computer science majors (great cross-section!). Largely optional sections on Fridays to get some feedback on your projects and work with TAs. Almost the entirety of the class focused on foreign relations and diplomatic history, US centric. This is largely because the professor already has a substantial corpus of foreign relations documents, ready for digital research. But the methods you learn here will be readily applicable to different corpuses in digital history (and indeed others are discussed at length). I recommend this to juniors loo…

Jerk just about sums it up for this man. There is no way you can take a course with Matt Connelly without having to swallow his condescension. It's unbelievable and incredibly disempowering. He is also very lazy which will make you feel like your thousands of dollars of debt are going down the drain. He is the typical researcher who is socially awkward and should not be teaching. He is everything that is wrong with Columbia...professors who don't give a damn about their students. He is passionate about history, very smart and can put together a great syllabus, but he is just not supportive in any capacity. If you know what's good for you, don't take a class with him, TRUST ME.

Writing a CULPA review for Matthew Connelly is extraordinarily difficult, because I have not yet decided if he's truly an asshole, or just incredibly awkward. He comes accross as very arrogant and at times condescending - but I don't think maybe he just lacks people skills. He seems not to have mastered (or simply doesn't care about) the way you should address or speak to another human being. Any communication with him often makes you incredibly angry, and he can be very curt, and often shows no concern for you as a person or a student (he's not a mentor type). As a teacher, I would best describe him as a lazy hard-ass. Other than selecting a syllabus (which I'll admit, was pretty good), he seems to put very little effort into the class (in fact, he admitted that his research, and not his teaching, was his main priority), but he expects a lot from you as a student. This sucks, because when you have a professor who expects a lot, but is not inspiring, comes accross as an arrogant jerk and doesn't seem to be putting a lot of effort into the class, other than for your own personal gain, you feel no desire to put any effort into the class. The workload was strange. The readings were often interesting, but sometimes needlessly long (a 300-page assignment in the course packet would be discussed for all of 10 minutes in class). The novels he selected are interesting now that I'm read…

I learned everything in this course. I don't think my experience as a history major would feel complete without it: Balancing secondary and primary source research and analysis. Brainstorming. Writing. Exploring intellectual curiosities. Literature reviews. Identifying gaps and strengths and weaknesses in current scholarship. Applying theory and different methodologies to the study of history. Providing meaningful and helpful feedback to peers. Research.

Three 1,500 word historical film analysis papers, plus the midterm and final. For the midterm and final, you are given the choice between 2-3 prompts and have exactly one week to write a 5,000 word paper to the prompt of your choice. Not terrible, but since there is such a short time limit you really have to be careful about your schedule around his midterm and final.

Even though I've taken other history courses in the same time period, this class made me realize I only knew the bare outlines. The workload is intense but you can get used to it- many long articles and a "reading response" that's more like a short essay, due every single week. Personally, I found you actually have to do at least most of the readings to at all figure out what's going on in class and in the discussion section, but I think some people seemed to slide by with only skimming. The class is focused on International history, with some classes dealing with the Cold War US-USSR dynamic, and other classes on alternative angles of viewing the era, like the rise of third world nationalism. I disagree with the other reviewers who said Connelly only focuses on America, he does talk about it often but not at all exclusively. He's also really knowledgeable about history in general and the Algerian anti-French revolution (one of the other readings we did actually quoted him on it, not in a big-deal kind of way, but it was cool) and on nuclear weapons and proliferation. Connelly stays pretty balanced on controversial issues and really gets into questions about what caused different events and what motivated the different players to act as they did. He makes a point of pausing in class to ask if anyone has questions, and even if your question doesn't get answered then, there's al…

Friendly and approachable professor. The course covers a wide area (geographically and historically) of material which can make it a bit intimidating. However, Connelly spends most of the time talking about his own work and when there is class discussion, it tends to be dominated by a few opinionated people. Overall, an okay course, although the quality of the discussion varied greatly on who was presenting, and usually left much to be desired.

I think the course is excellent. I think the Professor did a great job with us. I just do not think this course is for everybody. You have to be strong and disciplined to undertake a senior thesis.

I have very mixed feelings about this class. International and Global History is sort of a mis-statement given that most of the material is focused on American History since World War 2, or at the very least the US' involvement in world events. Nevertheless, this class is great for those interested in that type of history. I also feel mixed about the class style. The lectures were interesting, and it was okay to skip a few here and there and not get behind. However, the midterm/final situation was horrible. You had to write two 6 page essays basically in 48 hours based on a packet of filled with many very long and boring articles. The very small time requirement was very strange to me, and I don't think allows people to write very good essays, but that could just be my opinion. Also, Prof. Connelly is not the warmest professor.