Peter Temes

Peter, as some reviewers have implied, does not ask questions about dramatic irony or solicit facile literary analyses. He skips the boring tedious professor-like act and instead engages the class in conversation. It is easy to take this skill for granted. I had him for a fall semester in 2005 and then had another teacher the next semester who was TERRIBLE and could not get the students to say anything. Peter is genuinely interested in his students, and he asks questions that are very open-ended and thought-provoking. If you want a teacher who, like Bruce Robbins, compares passages or entire novels to literary, philosophic, or historical movements and soliloquizes on his own ideas, Peter is not your type. If you want an enjoyable class with enjoyable assignments (which is pretty ideal considering Lit Hum is a piece of cake anyway), then definitely take Lit Hum with him, if you can.

If you're looking for an easy A or a professor who wants to be your buddy, this is the class for you. It's a breeze for any marginally thoughtful reader OR the Temes equivalent ("Is it possible that Don Quixote is deluded?" "Why is Jane Austen so hard to get through?"). Prepare for: fifteen-minute stretches where he talks on and on about some incredibly boring point, first introduced anecdotally and then repeated in slightly different forms until you've lost the will to live; stories about the famous people he knows/has met; more stories about the time students protested when he was president of a grad school / the time his daughter spit in his face / his dissertation on MLK / how passionless Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen are ("Is Pride and Prejudice a great book?" "Does it belong in Lit Hum?" --> "What is a great book?" --> "Shouldn't a great book provide a picture of society? Shouldn't the scope be very large?" --> "My problem with Jane Austen is that her scope is so small"). If you are interested in reading, or sanity, please stay away from this man.

First of all, Peter Temes does not have the time to be teaching Lit Hum. He's often away on business, and it's pretty apparent that he doesn't read all of many of the books. He talks about the opening and ending in some detail, without much discussion about what happens in between. His talks are usually an opportunity for him to comment on what he takes to be the book's greatness, which is usually related to some kind of opinion about its "passion" (for instance, the problem with Virginia Woolf is that she has no passion - so our homework assignment was to find a moment of passion in To the Lighthouse. The problem with Jane Austen is that her scope is so small. The problem with Montaigne is that he is so cold, which is also the problem with Hamlet). For the books he didn't like (Austen, Woolf, and Boccaccio, the last of which he obviously didn't read), he spent an excessive amount of time asking us about why we think the books are on the syllabus. Peter is a really compassionate, smart guy whom you'd be happy to have as a drinking buddy. He instigates late-night-dorm-room-type discussions, with attendant stupid remarks from students about their own experiences and beliefs. He's a lot of fun to have as an instructor - but he'll tell you very little that's surprising, unless it's to get it wrong (Virginia Woolf has no passion? are you kidding?). He will talk too much, often abou…

Amazing class with Temes. He loves teaching the subject and has a wealth of insight to share on all of the books, even the ones that he thinks don't deserve time on the syllabus. That said, you will have to do a lot of extra work to be ready for the final exam-- Temes spent much more time focusing on broad themes of the course and life (including walking us though moral thought experiments, drawing connections to other books/pop culture, sharing personal anecdotes, etc.) rather than specific passages that would show up on the ID section. However, I personally thought that the discussions Temes fostered were much more interesting than ones we could have had about the nitty gritty details of the books (characters, plot, quotes, etc.). Definitely a recommended professor who will make you think hard about the critical issues of the course and also make you laugh.

I have NO idea why Peter Temes has such great reviews, this man is a disgrace to the Ivy League. How he's taught at both Harvard and Columbia is beyond me. He openly admitted from the very beginning that he has taught books he's never read. He has no point to most of his classes, they are generally just mindless rambling with nothing but personal anecdotes. Aside from his complete lack of teaching he is simply a gross man with poor hygiene who sweats profusely and eats entirely too much. About the only good thing that he did was order pizza for us many times. He was once over an hour late to class. He also doesn't read essays all the way through. If your first page doesn't hook him don't expect comment beyond that and expect a very low grade with little to no explination. Bottom line, he's awful.

This guy's great--a wealth of knowledge and humor. The previous review was spot on, he focused more on the values we derived from the texts and their components (motifs, etc) than on spotting every such component and smiling wistfully to the ceiling in self-satisfaction at our own mysterious wit. It's a shame he left!

Professor Temes was the kind of instructor who I could truthfully boast to my friends about and make them consider switching to my section. The class focused more on getting our ideas out and developing them, then wasting time simply trying to be over-scholarly and analyzing every text through narrow methods. Professor Temes is extremely successful in his instruction because it does not seem like instruction, but a conversation between companions, which allows students the necessary comfort to include themselves in the dialogue. The only thing to hate about Prof. Temes' class is the fact that you'll have to adjust to a new professor in the second semester, one who will likely spend most of class defining Greek words.

Laughably light - two short papers, a midterm, and the final. He's an easy grader.

Lit Hum Syllabus plus one book written by a friend of his that no one bought or read.