Mignon Moore

A really great class! Professor Moore does a great job of balancing lecture and discussion, and makes the space really comfortable for people to share in. She brings in a very appropriate amount of her own experience with the topics of the class, and the paper assignment is a chance for students to do the same. As a result, even as a white girl from an upper middle class background, this class did not feel theoretical or tangential at all, and I feel I really got a lot out of it. I would recommend this class to anyone at Barnard/ Columbia who is interested in sociology, American studies, poli sci - this is a great course!

This class is PITIFUL. The previous reviewer who calls this class a mockery of academia is right on target. It's a mere recital of statistics with virtually no sociological theory argued, and with a constant undertow of the "downtrodden black family in the white-elitist American society" sentiment being advanced. Moreover, the three TA's couldn't be any more useless if they were in a coma. I just graduated 'magna' as a Sociology major, so trust me.......you will feel ripped off of tuition money (as I did) if you enroll in this.

Professor Moore is the best! Her class is really comprehensive and as a Black, African-American, queer woman herself, she provides a very unique perspective to all reading materials. She has done a lot of research herself on the Black gay community, so she ties that in often. We learned about the sociology of African-American life from around the Great Depression until the current period. Attend lecture, take good notes, and do the readings!

This was, by far, the WORST class I have ever taken at Columbia. It was a complete and utter mockery of academia. Sessions consisted almost entirely of self-absorbed students babbling about their own family problems. Professor Moore made hardly any attempt to guide the discussion, letting it meander where it may. On top of it, her lectures were insipid and boring. I've learned more about American families from watching reruns of "Full House" than I did from this class. Shameful, utterly shameful.

This class is WONDERFUL, one of the best classes and professors I have had in college. The course material was so interesting, the readings were fantastic, and Professor Moore does a fantastic job of integrating lecture and discussion. She brings her own life into the course, which made the material real and graspable for me, and invited students to do the same. Professor Moore really worked to create an environment where all students felt comfortable engaging with the material and speaking honestly, and I have yet to take a class where I find this to be done in a better way. There were days in this class where I felt very uncomfortable, but in the right way - this class helped to grow so much as a student, thinker, and person, and isn't that what college is supposed to help us all do?

Prof. Moore is great. She's interesting, funny, and has a great command of the subject matter. When we got behind because of 9/11 and some difficult readings, she adjusted the syllabus and extended the deadline for a paper--basically, she doesn't operate under the illusion that hers is the only class you're taking. The class is straightforward, and her lectures are organized and interesting. Discussion got off-topic sometimes, and she's let it go for awhile, so the class was generally pretty engaging.

Professor Moore's class is absolutely excellent. The syllabus provides for a very broad range of discussion on Black life in America from a variety of angles including race and gender, race and politics, race and motherhood, race and cultural capital and many others. While it is a lecture course, Professor Moore really encourages discussion and often wants us to voice our opinions on what we are learning. She also encourages us to relate our own lives and experiences to the content regardless of racial identification. It is an eye-opening and thought provoking class that I would definitely recommend to anyone from a freshman, which I was when taking this course, to sociology majors, which the majority of my classmates were. As far as Professor Moore's personality, she is a beautiful individual! Very kind and personable. She is always telling us stories about her life and even relates it to the material. She's great!

Who cares? You shouldn't even consider this class!

Heed the warnings! This was the WORST class I have ever taken. Mignon is inflexible and humorless; her lectures are dry; and her class is generally insufferable. Columbia students deserve better.

Totally managable. Midterm, paper, in-class final.