Michael Como

Disclaimer: I was interested in Buddhism before taking his class. If you are interested to learn more about Buddhism, even just a little bit, take his class and I'm sure you won't regret it. I really, really, really love his class! Prof Como knows how to keep you awake at 8:40 without a coffee. His lectures are pretty structured. He uses lots of examples from real life to help you understand the course materials as well. If you don't want to learn about Buddhism at all, then you need to think twice because all these narratives and stuff might seem pretty dry to you. Take something else for the global core, something that you are truly interested in. One tip: attend all of the lectures. DON'T SKIP CLASS!

This graduate seminar was very informative and quite enjoyable. There was significant reading due each week, and each discussion was led by two students. Professor Como usually stayed ou of the way and let us lead the class. The two leaders for the next week's class met with Professor Como at Starbucks on the Friday before class to discuss the readings and come up with questions about them, then these questions were emailed out to the class. Everyone was to post responses on CourseWorks by 5 PM on Sunday. The class focused more on spirits than on bodies, though you can't really separate the two here. We also spent most of our time reading about China, though we did go into Vietnam and Korea a little, and Japan for a few weeks at the end. This class was my first exposure to East Asian religions, and I made it through, though I do suggest taking other classes in East Asian religion for the extra background information. This would especially have helped me as I wrote the term paper.

He's very nice and seems pretty approachable, but this class was often very frustrating. As someone with a background in East Asian studies, I wanted to learn far more about the content of the course--about religion. Instead, we spent more than half of the lectures going over basics of Japanese history, defining terms, doing rough synopses of what happened in Japan over the ages. Except that these explanations were less thorough than that you'd have received in Japanese Civ, and yet they took time away from thorough explanations of religion. It's more like we learned the historical bases of religion, such as what kind of movements there were, how they were viewed by society, how they interacted with the government... But we didn't actually spend enough time learning about their theology, about WHAT the religions where about--just when and where they happened. It was a good and interesting enough class, but it still felt like an overview, and it left me wondering what I have to do if I want to take a class that stops being a brief overview of all of the history of the country and actually gets into the meat and substance of the matter.

Various things about philosophy and literature.

Disclaimer: It is important to note that I am offering my opinion as a student that is from a science based major, was taking this course namely to complete my global core requirement and with little to no background in religion or humanities for that matter. With that being said I would highly recommend Professor Como to anyone that was either interested in East Asian Buddhism or needed to fill their global core requirement. For global core seekers Professor Como is a great lecturer and does a wonderful job of laying out the material in a way that emphasizes the key points which allow you connect the ideas. It was interesting to see that the development of a religion really is a logical progression once you understand the underlying factors that influence transmission of ideology. For people that are interested in Buddhism in general, Professor Como is extremely knowledgeable about the field(His wife's family is Buddhist and he will share interesting personal anecdotes which bring the material alive). When you begin the course he will tell you that one of his goals is to make the familiar unfamiliar and the unfamiliar familiar. I can say without a doubt that he works hard to deliver on that promise. As sad as it may be some teachers really do phone it in when it comes to their duties to educate their students, Professor Como is certainly not one of them.

Medium to long reading each week, weekly courseworks post, 15-20 page term paper.

This guy is amazing! He is one of the best teachers I have ever had. His explanations of difficult subjects are so clear and understandable. I cannot say enough great things about him. I enrolled in the class to fulfill a Humanities and Cultural Diversity requirement at the same time. I would recommend the class just to experience such an incredible professor who knows how to teach. His comedy is excellent as well. Take any class you can with Professor Como.

I have learned the most important schools of thought that have been internalized generations after generations' East Asians. I have learned how people in the past deal with these schools of thought and use them to cope with the suffering and to answer existential questions they have asked themselves.

Summary: Buddhism with Como is pretty easy, interesting, and fun. It's a great class to take to fulfill the global core requirement. Avoid TA Dessi. Pro tip: show up to every class and take notes. Getting notes from a friend might suffice, but you'll probably get confused because the concepts get somewhat complex as he goes on, plus they build on each other. Como is funny and a fantastic lecturer. I came away from his lectures with a solid (very general and pretty novice, but nonetheless kinda legit) understanding of the basics of Indian, Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. Avoid TA Dessi. Seriously. Her bark is worse than her bite (grading), but she's just a pain to deal with during the semester. I've heard some other TA's are good: Jay, Su-Jung, maybe another.

The readings are interesting and foundational. I learned the basics of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and read a bunch of great literature. Unfortunately, we were given virtually no background information.