Noha Radwan

Lovely class and professor. The class was mostly seniors, and they all seemed to know Professor Radwan. The class was exceptionally laidback, though discussions were still often lively and interesting. Radwan raised great points, and she really wanted to class to be close - she held three class dinners, including one at her apartment. The novels were great, and she clearly had a deep knowledge of them - though sometimes it was frustrating to read in translation (she read the books in Arabic) and not get all of the things she noticed in her reading.

Professor Radwan is one of the most amazing professors here at Columbia. You will definitely have to work in her class, but this means that you will get a lot out of it. She likes lots of participation and discussion, so you have to make sure that you do the reading, cuz she's not afraid to call people out who are just being lazy and slacking off. However, if you are unable to do the reading one week, just tell her, she will most likely understand and just not call on you that day. She puts a huge effort into making sure that her students not only learn the materials from the class (she held additional review sessions for the final that were actually useful) but that we had fun (she ordered pizza for us and we all watched O Brother Where Art Thou? after we read the Odyssey. Overall, if you are willing to put the work in this is the best way to take LitHum, it's pretty painless, fun, and you will learn more about these books than you thought there was to learn.

Noha Radwan is a strong, knowledgeable and amazing professor. Many students will complain about her accent, or her no B.S. approach, but this is for those who cannot take the education that an Ivy League has to offer. The course is a not a light one, but this is not because of the professor, it is because The History of the Islamic Civilization is not something small, so the long unfamiliar names and dates and places all over the world will seem overwhelming, but Professor Radwan always does her best to go through it all and answer questions. The class and the sections are more intimidating than the Midterms and the Finals. There will be a lot of students groaning and complaining about the bombardment of information, however, they fail to comprehend the vast, rich and extensive history that is in this course. Professor Noha Radwan is lively and brings fourth films, songs and poetry to spice things up. Her English is as strong as her Arabic. Her mysteriousness adds to her quite colorful character.

Prof. Radwan is awesome! This is the course I put the most into and got the most out of. It's definitly one of my absolute favorites at Columbia and has inspired me to take more in the department. At first, I was really in awe of Radwan because she has such a commanding presence and authoritative voice but, as the semester progressed, I came to really respect her as a person and admire her as a scholar. Listening to Radwan's insightful comments, it's hard for anyone to deny her firm grasp on the subject material. I looked forward to going to lectures and felt they moved at a comfortable pace. While she's open to students' opinion, she's not one of those newfangled profs who believe everything some how makes sense--she won't hesitate to tell you when you're off kilter (which is appreciated!). My only complaint is she allows certain students to monopolize the discussion and often calls on the same opinionated students again and again. Besides for this minor glitch in facilitating class conversation, Prof. Radwan is really wonderful. She's surprisingly easy to talk to one-on-one and very encouraging when drafting papers. At times I felt she was my age because she's so approachable and has a good sense of humor. I highly recommend taking a class with Prof. Radwan because she's a great lecturer, approachable scholar and friendly individual.

I had Noha for 2 semesters of Lit Hum and despite the 2 hr classes I had a good time. Noha is new to Columbia from California yet has already found a way to effectively and interestingly teach this course. I think much of this comes from her personal experiance with the culture invovled (more so the first semester as she is Egyptian) as well as being acquainted with some of the texts when she was younger. She is upbeat in class, always interested in what you have to say, knows what shes talking about and tells you what you need to know without the bullshit. She expects you to participate in class though. Dont take her if you want to sit in class and do nothing. I would take the class again if she was my teacher. I highly reccomend her to anyone.

I really enjoyed Noha's class. Admittedly, she was a weak lecturer during the beginning of the course, but she improved dramatically throughout the term. She is very kind and approachable. As far as I can tell, the only reason people took issue with her was because of the somewhat tough grading of the midterm. The test probably should have been curved, but plenty of people did fine on it and Noha was willing to meet with everyone who was concerned about their grade. She took the time to go over the test and even changed grades where she thought the TAs had been too picky. Radwan is really excited about teaching students about the Middle East and I would recommend this class to anyone who is remotely interested in the history of that part of the world. Everyone I spoke with did fine in the class, and to be honest, I thought the grading was almost too lenient. If you have ANY background in the area, you will not need to study for either of the tests, and if you don't, then you should approachthe professor before you get your grade back to discuss the issues and terms at hand. Noha is really nice and I think she was fair. Her class had its ups and downs, but all in all it was enjoyable.

One book a week (most are short novellas), weekly short response postings, midterm paper (5-7 pgs.), final paper (10-14 pgs.) - all deadlines are flexible. all of them. but PARTICIPATE.

Noha rocks super hard. This is the class that I really look forward to each week, due in part to Noha's great teaching. One reviewer wrote that Noha spends too much time focusing in on the small stuff and not enough time on the big ideas, yet I haven't found that to be the case at all. Ms. Radwan takes care to place the works in the appropriate context and does a great job of tying them all together to create a narrative of western literature. She certainly does focus in on the text in a line-by-line fashion much of the time, and thank goodness! She understands that in order to understand the "big ideas," one must first understand the specifics. On a personal level, I've really appreciated how cool Noha is and how much of an effort she's put into making the class really fun. We've had a few class outings and extra study sessions (nothing to sniff at when you realize she has two young children,) and she even invited us to her house for dinner and a movie. All in all, if you get Noha, count yourself lucky and enjoy the ride.

Due to Radwan's exceedingly unpleasant personality and voice, I attended a total of about 45 minutes of class throughout the semester. I attended about 3/4 of the discussion sections, participating not once, and submitted each of the obviously ungraded 250 word weekly response papers as a lump at the final session. For the midterm and final, for which she gave us a list of terms and essays from which the test questions would be chosen, I wikipediaed the terms (about 3% weren't on the site, so I checked the textbook's index), my friend wikipediaed the essays, and we exchanged them. I also spent about 3 hours wikipediaing the 3-page double spaced extra credit essay. Hence, the total time spent on the course outside of attendance, was 20 minutes times 10 = 3.3 hrs for the responses, 6 hrs for the midterm (pretty relaxed studying--just procrastinating, wikipediaing, and memorizing terms), 9 hrs for the final, and 3 hrs for the extra credit, for a total of 21.3 hours. I received an A+ for this 4 point class.

A book a week--if the first class is on a Tuesday, you'll be expected to read a book by Thursday, which is difficult if you're still putting you schedule together and shopping for classes! Some of the books are charcoal dry, others are unnecessarily avant-garde but most are very enjoyable and Radwan's lectures tend to illuminate the texts. She occasionally assigns convoluted secondary sources but you'll be ok if you just skim them since some are painfully pedantic and don't merit meticulous dissection. Active class participation is required (she'll call on you even if you don't raise your hand!). Two papers (one that is 10pgs and another around 15pgs). She grades fairly (probably more on the easy than hard side).