Peter Johnson

Is this a review section or a place to submit essays? Geez, we all have issues, we're human. Johnson knows what time it is, he's outside of the box just enough to be synical without really caring. If GSers are complaining about having only one choice for CC section, they should take it up with the CORE office, not culpa.info. Johnson was entertaining, if that matters. He cares about the class. Shop it if you can.

Alright now, it seems this has become more of a forum than a review site. No one is doubting that PAJ offers a deep and academically challenging class, he does. But we don't have to be defensive against devil naming PAJ bashing. Whoever cited platitudes against the warning review was also defensive. Why must we be defensive? Unless, we are protecting something? Why can't we say that this is an awesome class with a teacher that is not afraid to go against the grain, whether the grain is the commonly held viewpoint on an author, or your arguments, beliefs, or attitudes? You see my dear seeker of truth and knowledge, critical thinking with PAJ comes at a price. Let us not overlook PAJ's disturbing issues when they may have serious consequences on your life (CC is a two semester gig): this course offers a window into the previously untapped inner realms of your consciousness. Should you try to tap it with PAJ? The advantages are there for sure and other teachers, more centrist or younger, might be unable to get behind the text the way PAJ does. But he has issues, I swear, and if you're at all sensitive you will have to deal with them, that is, if you care about your papers and why you are taking the class. GS students are not obliged to take CC, nor Lit Hum. So when a GS student takes CC it is for a serious reason. So why is it that GS students only have one choice when there are…

It's amazing -- if you omit the pulpit-pounding and the snide tone, even the _one_ negative review of Johnson reads like a list of reasons to take his class. 1) He wants you to look at texts for points you might not understand. And he wants to help you end up feeling like you got things straight by the end of the discussion, if you can. 2) He's going to push you in class -- which means that if you disagree with his point of view, you'd better be able to stick up for yourself. 3) He's going to push you on your essays -- which means that if you're just going to recite his own point of view back to him, you'd better have a better reason for it than what he gave you in class. 4) He's a nice enough guy to sign a late drop slip or help you transfer to another CC section -- or did I misunderstand how our "PAJ is the devil" friend happened to be around for Machiavelli but not for the end of the semester when Johnson performed voodoo to get all those good reviews? If you want to learn, and you don't mind doing some work, this is the section for you (it's easy to find this one -- it's always the latest one at night) If you already know everything (including what the other people in the class are thinking and why) it probably is not.

PAJ is the devil. I'm not sure what class these other people were in. Maybe he performed some kind of voodoo magic at the end of the semester to convince his students to write flattering CULPA reviews. It seemed to me that PAJ cares about his students' thoughts and opinions about as much as you care about the bum on the corner. If you don't agree with his interpretation of the material in class, you're obviously stupid, but if you don't disagree with his interpretation in your papers, you're obviously stupid. Believe me, it's a lose-lose situation. Not only is PAJ the devil, but he is also pompus, pretentious, and egotistical. Take, for instance, PAJ's view on Machiavelli. PAJ believes, and I quote, that he is "the only man who truely understands what Machiaveli was trying to say." Right. You and the 13,000 other people who have posted the same idea on the internet.

Platitudes aside, I tell you: take Johnson's CC section. After hearing the complaints that are unleashed upon other professors, I can not help feeling fortunate. Look, CC is the core of this school's curriculum; a sustained encounter with some of the most influential ideas of human history. This can only be the life-changing experience it should be if the professor is a qualified guide. Johnson has been teaching CC for about fifteen years, and his interpretations of texts were not only thorough, they were provocative. His approach was to break each class into an hour of discussion, in which students offered three questions to the class, followed by an hour or so of his own commentary. Now, when I say he was provocative, I mean that these "lectures" were something to look forward to. They were never what you thought, always against the grain- try Aristophanes as a progressive socio-economic theorist- they presented genuinely new ways of looking at these books, of making them new. And this is what he expected of students in return. Our papers were judged both for thoroughness and creativity. I will certainly remember CC as an invaluable experience. I highly recommend others study with Johnson that they may feel the same.

Well now, if Jacob had to wrestle on the mountain with God, then you will have to wrestle in the classroom with Peter Maximus Johnson for sure. Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, both. While often one must learn "to write for the professor," or TA, it's not so easy here. Johnson will question your every move with an analytical eye that is near menacing in a cleverly hidden way: academic evaluation, especially in philosophy, can be quite subjective. Of course, if you do enough outside research you should realize that all interpretation is subjective anyway. But you might be careful about outside research. You in a bind here. On the one hand Peter Machiavelli Johnson wants you to stick only to the readings he assigns, and on the other he wants you to have something original to say. Older GS students - who are obligated to take his section ONLY - may find this troubling, which leads to a more important issue: remove your life experience and approach the texts without your persona, at least for the first semester. This will be hard, but you can do it. It's fun. Your identity is probably redundant and played out anyway, try a different one on for size, or just become each author as you go along without preying on young male youths as you work through the early Greeks. This professor is loaded and out of control, but refined with a PHD from Cornell. This is all very sen…

Professor Johnson is a talented instructor who obviously cares deeply about the course he's teaching. His busy life outside the university can be a plus and a minus for students. On the plus side, his "day job" in public policy at a major industry association means that when it comes to practical politics he can tell you things from direct experience that you're never going to learn from a 25-year-old preceptor in another CC section. On the minus side, when he gets overwhelmed at work it can take him very nearly forever to get papers, tests, and grades back to his students, and that can be frustrating. His engaging manner in class certainly keeps everyone interested; on the other hand, his tendency to tease his students clearly sometimes doesn't always go over well with the thin-skinned (see the review above from a student who's convinced that PJ has a pathological hatred of athletes, a suggestion I find almost hilarious: clue time, folks, PJ picks on *everyone* for *something* and that's half the fun!). With written assignments, his style of feedback is much more like what you'd get from a demanding but busy boss in the workplace than the collaborative "good work, here are a few ways to do it better" style you often see from other humanities profs at Columbia: he is a moderately demanding grader who tells you where he wants to see you do better but not how -- figuring out _ho…

I have mixed feelings about this professor. Although I believe I learned more from him than I would have in any other CC section, and highly doubt I would have been as interested in the material with another professor, I must warn ATHLETES. He is not fond of the athletically inclined here at Columbia, and is not afraid of giving his opion about how athletics is negative aspect of the school and takes away from "the academic community." As a varsity athlete, he will pick on you (he did so to my teammates in previous years as well as to myself and fellow athlete-classmates) and question your intelligence (openly in front of the class) and he is unsympathetic if you have to miss even a single class due to an away game (or another athletics-related conflict). If you are an in-season athlete (it might be easier if you're not in season), I would avoid this section. The lectures are amazing, but it's almost not worth the trouble.

just to echo whoever wrote the review dated feb.2004 (because that person was obviously in my class) johnson is one of the greatest teachers at columbia...suffer the horrible time slot to take this guy. he will seriously open your mind to new ways of looking at old texts and you will be so amazed at how such crap could be so applicable. he does not feed you the standard liberal bullshit. damn i loved this class

Johnson is the man. He's relaxed, has a real life outside of "academia," and fosters an atmopshere where everyone speaks, and is reciprocally engaged by his lectures. We had a midterm study session where he bought us food, and we all sat around his living room. Then watched some TV. He is one of those professors who is willing to help you, specifically, and makes you love philosophy while living a normal life.