Neni Panourgia

I took her during spring semester for CC only because my darling CC professor from fall was leaving to Africa to write a book. Anyway to sum things up, you will love her or hate her. I hated her. First of all there are no papers or even a midterm. It is just participation and a take home final (that you don't know is a take home final until the last day of class). If you're really comfortable being very talkative in class and you have a good hold on the texts *just* from reading them then you are absolutely golden. However, if you're like me, and need some illumination about the reading then you're SOL. I did not understand half the things this lady said--and not because of her accent--but because she would use the most convoluted and garbled phrasing. She would go on explaining Hegel's dialectic forever, just to backtrack and say no actually never mind I meant this way. She explained Freud's id, ego, an superego completely WRONG. She never appeared to have much of a lesson plan, so while the class might have been engaged in some really interesting conversation, you had no idea what was relevant and should be jotted down in your notes especially since we could get stuck on completely irrelevant tangents for more than half the class. Naturally this left you with completely useless notes by the time you got to the final. The whole no papers or midterm things really bothered me b…

I consider myself to be a very liberal person - maybe not by Columbia standards, but certainly by normal American standards. That said, Urban Guerrillas was the most offensively, stupefyingly leftist course that I have ever taken. The professor and a majority of the class will openly advocate for violence and terrorism in the name of overthrowing some nondescript, nebulous, Capitalist/Zionist/Fascist conspiracy to control the world. Another reviewer said that students simply need to keep an open mind. I really wish the professor was able to keep an open mind. After raising objections to her arguments in the first three weeks and subsequently being insulted and attacked by the prof and other students, I was shamed into keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the semester. This is not an Anthropology class. This is an ideological circle-j@#k. If you protested the return of ROTC because the military is a tool of Capitalist oppression, this class is probably for you. All others stay away.

this class, for the most part, was decent. neni's accent is a little thick, but you can get used to it after a while. my main problem was not necessarily the professor, but the fact that sometimes the discussion would get a little out of hand. maybe it was just the people, or neni's lack of direction sometimes. as an anthro major, though, i found the readings very interesting and worth while, for the most part. also, our TA brian was amazing. i found myself meeting with him more than neni, mostly because she sometimes comes off as cold in office hours.

This has to be one of the worst classes I have yet to take at Columbia. If it had not been for the AMAZING TA i had, i wuld not have done well. Panourgia was always late for class, takes role EVERDAY taking up even more time, and MAYBE talks about the reading for 20 min. She tries to get people to speak up in class but soimetimes you dont even know what she is asking beacuse of her thick accent. I do not recommend this class at all

While Professor Panourgia is a joy to talk to during office hours, she did not run this graduate seminar very well at all. The readings were quite interesting, but the professor failed to effectively stimulate discussion. She lectured non-stop on topics that were often unrelated to the readings. While her digressions were sometimes interesting, I often came away from class without ever having a chance to discuss the (often quite dense) theoretical readings we were assigned. Granted, sometimes interesting discussions would unfold when students interrupted her constant digressions, but these incidents were rare, and generally only included one or two students in the class. Professor Panourgia might be quite interesting to listen to in an undergraduate lecture course, but I would not recommend her to graduate students interested in seminar discussion.

Prof. Panourgia is brilliant. I can understand why the other reviewers find her disorganized. You might call it disorganized, but in the ideal academic world, it's an open forum. She is incredibly respectful of her students and the general power dynamic between professors and students. She doesn't want to dole out a grade and call it a day. Your thoughts matter to her, as long as they're constructive. True, we didn't follow the syllabus. It became, "Uh, I don't have Adorno in my frontal lobe, so this book is hard." "Oh, I thought you did. Read some of Dialectic of Enlightenment for next week." Anyway, not enough good things to say about her. Anyone who starts off a sentence with, "Back in my Communist youth in Athens," is probably worth taking a class with, right? Right.

Outstanding. Panourgia is an incredible intellectual with a sharp wit and a truly caring approach to her class. Although she is definitely a little eccentric, her goal is that you learn how philosophical thought has developed and the connections between each author, rather than a staid knowledge of facts. The class has changed substantially from reviews below. Now, the grade is 50% participation and 50% final: no midterm, no essays. Do not be intimidated by this. In fact, revel in it, as you won't be slaving away on essays but rather learning a tremendous amount in the easiest way possible. The final is take home, but %50 of it is quote IDs (you are encouraged to use the internet as a resource) and you can attempt up to 370 essay points (so potentially end up with a mark of 370/100). The class is basically graded on a scale of A+ to A-.

Neni is absolutely inspiring and engaging, UG was one of the best classes i've taken here. Even for those who may think that they're lateral thinkers, Neni opens up new perspectives and new ideas. However, moderate liberals and conservatives beware...the class is about tactics that various leftists movements took after all. generally discussions in class (on issues like class, education, revolution & political despair) will take an ultra-liberal turn, and if you aren't willing to examine the disposition of the outlaw or consider the validity in some radical ideology, you'll just find this class a frustrating waste of your time.

Neni is one of the best professors in the Anthro Dept. I've taken 2 seminars with her and was planning on taking a third but the schedule did not work out. Neni cares about her students and isn't afraid to say some controversial things. The readings are always great. I especially enjoyed Urban Guerillas because she obviously really cared about the class and brought in movies and special guest speakers. The reading is always manageable too (50-100 pages a week). I only wish that she was a little better at keeping the class on topic. Neni is a brilliant lecturer but most of the class becomes a free-for-all with students discussing whatever current events interest them most.

Professor Panourgia's Interpretation of Culture class was great. The readings were fascinating, providing a great survey of anthropological thought over the last century. She was an amazingly engaging professor, asking difficult philosophical and ethical questions that left us confused, which I believe is a good thing, because it meant we were thinking. The lectures involved us responding to her discussion questions, and while she let some people ramble, her overall goal was to promote discussion among the students, rather than merely lecturing on the material. For me this format worked but I know many found it frustrating because we often did not fully cover the readings. However, she usually stayed after class to answer or discuss material with students. My only real problem with Professor Panourgia was her inability to give directions. Simple logistical questions were answered in lengthy complicated ways. If you can get past her complex theoretical vocabulary and her scattered style, this class is wonderful.