Rebecca Stanton

I am not writing this to give Stanton a public pat on the back or a public tongue lashing. I’m writing this because I wish someone wrote a serious review of Rebecca Stanton before I took her class. After reading her personal biography (on her website) and seeing that she goes out of her way to list the many languages she knows, I suspected that Stanton might not be the teacher for me, but I read the reviews on Culpa, which seemed good enough, and the curriculum seemed great, so despite my better wisdom I took the class. First I’ll cover how reading Culpa reviews lead me astray and that should lead quite naturally into how she so hopelessly bungled the curriculum. You will notice reviewers below me writing things like, “thanks for being so, so, awesome, RJS, and “Rebecca Stanton is really damn cool. There are students who do like Stanton. For the sake of those who come after me, I’ll be as frank as possible (despite the fact that I’m sure Stanton is the type to pour over culpa reviews—you’ll note the editors of culpa have suspected worse [check the review on September 9th 2002]). If you are serious (and particularly if you’ve been around Barnard or Columbia for a while) you aren’t likely to be one of them. If you are a young Barnard girl who appreciates (dated) pop culture references and/or you haven’t been exposed to much intellectual depth, Stanton’s scatter shot of disparate…

Please, do not be intemidated by the few negative reviews that were posted earlier. Professor Stanton is an extremely intelligent, competent, understanding, approachable, and funny person. It might seem that she is a hard grader in terms of the papers and she says so herslef, but as long as you discuss your ideas with her or the TA and make sure your argument is interesting and logically makes sense, you should be fine. The exams are not that hard at all if you read the works and attend the classes. And yes, there is a lot of reading involved for the class, but it's a LITERATURE class, so what do you expect??? And what's up with this statement that you should not take this class if you don't like Russian literature??? Why would anyone take this class unless s/he likes Russian literature??? Yes, you have to work hard in this class, but your work will be rewarded at the end. And the literature studied, of course, is simply amazing.

I feel I have to respond to the third reviewer. I realize that most of the people in the class loved Rebecca. I just had to point out that it may not be for everyone. I believe I said that I had resolved to try my best with the class regardless of whether or not I would have taken Lit Hum if it weren't required. I was never "COMPLETELY uninterested" in Lit Hum. I enjoyed some of the reading, mainly in the second semester. I kept up with the study questions, and always took a few days out to work on my papers. So what are the real reasons for my struggles in lit hum, conveyed loud and clear through my own comments? As for the grading, I can only speak from my own experience. I mean, it would also be possible for me to decide that I had gotten decent grades that corresponded to the amount of work I put in and then say that other people are "confused" for not feeling the same way, but that wouldn't make sense. In my experience, the comments on my papers could be sarcastic and discouraging at times. On the other hand, they could have been interpreted as inspiring by another person. I am trying to be objective here and not assume that everyone had the same experience I did. For example, in general, my papers warranted about one half to three-quarters of a page of commentary. Rebecca would sometimes explain why I got the grade I did. Often, my arguments were solid and the paper was…

This review will not do Rebecca Stanton justice, as she deserves more nice words than I could write. I started out the semester planning to drop the class, but as the deadline approached, the thought of waking up on Monday morning and not going to this class was just too sad. Not all of the books on the syllabus were fantastic, but the discussions we had about them were, without fail. Professor Stanton is one of the few professors I've come across who seems to care as much about *teaching* and ensuring that her students learn as much as they want to as she does about her field. As in all classes, you get what you put into it, but the difference is that when you put a lot in, you get exponentially more from the class than from most. For instance, you're expected to keep a journal of reactions to the readings (probably the most onerous part of the class, but you can write as much or as little as you want), and she must have spent hours writing personal, engaging, thoughtful and thought-provoking responses -- which ended up being the highlight of the class for me. You can use this class to think about any number of topics relating to literature or to real life (or both), and chances are, you will come out of it aware, enlightened, and on your way to being a more decent human being. In any case, I consider myself absurdly lucky to have had an opportunity to interact with such an i…

Rebecca Stanton is really damn cool. It will take you a little while to adjust to the way her brain works (her thoughts develop based on the transitive property; somehow you can go from Nietzsche to vintage Mickey Mouse films to Dr. Zhivago in a matter of seconds). Once you adjust, you will realize that she is incredibly intelligent and a rare find, and you will probably find yourself thinking like her. She is also hillarious. Oh yeah... and she is the kindest, most dedicated, most giving professor that you will ever have.

I personally don't care if CULPA accuses me of being Rebecca herself, I must speak the truth. I'm only a sophomore in the College, but REBECCA STANTON IS THE BEST INSTRUCTOR I'VE HAD!! True, she's a grad student, but so what? I have an adjunct prof. for cc who's not worthy of carrying her books. Rebecca is brilliant, funny, and truly cares that her students learn the material and appreciate the books. She's very accessible (up in her cramped office on Hamilton 8-- imagine floor 10 1/2 in "Being John Malkovich") Yes, she requires a rather full work load (the ODC's can be killer), but she's worth it. Case in point-- my friends who weren't in the class always checked my class' website prior to an exam, because even Rebecca's blurbs on her werbsite were more informative than their class' lectures.

There was a reasonable amount of reading. There were two essays and a final. You could choose to do just one large essay if you wanted to. She is a rough grader. She brutalized some of the kids papers, both in this class and in her other class this semester. It is frustrating when you learn nothing in a class (and perhaps worse, when the class is wholly uninspiring) and yet you are expected to turn out particularly good work. I think it is great if some teacher has performed particularly well in some valuable class and expects you to follow suit but not after the sort of performance Stanton turned out. She apparently wants her students to put together what she never could in class. Sadly the impression I’ve gotten talking to other student is that even then a student must “buddy up to her to get the grade he or she deserves. Much in keeping with the discrepancy between her performance and her expectations, we had early deadlines for our papers and we didn’t get our grades back until a month into summer. Awful. Awful. Awful. Awful. Awful.

Rebecca Stanton is great, but a ridiculous grader. I put a TON of work into the class and I did horrendously for some mysterious reason. I loved Russian literature, but I can't really afford to work that hard in a class and not be rewarded for it. So I guess that's the only Russian lit class I'm going to take. If you can turn out English major-style B.S. or are really familiar with Russian literature, go for it and you'll probably do fine. Otherwise, even if you work hard, you probably don't do well.

the two previous reviews were written by two very confused people....first of all, Rebecca is NOT an actual "professor" at Columbia. She is a graduate student in the slavic studies department finishing up her thesis. She is actually still here this year trying to finish up her thesis, even though she was supposed to finish last year (which is not surprising considering the amount of time she must have spent on our class coupled with the fact that she was getting married)...but back to my first point, which is directed at the first review.... Rebecca is not a professor, but a graduate student. Not that this is in any way a bad thing, considering that she did such an awesome job teaching the class. I don't see how you could possbly think it was her first year teaching. First of all, she talked on several occasions in class about her previous teaching experience (the fact that the reviewer clearly did not pick up on any of it raises question as to the validity of the review)...second of all, to repeat myself once again...she was just flat-out awesome. She was a master of the socratic method...managing to move the class along at an efficient pace, encouraging class discussion--and managing to succeed in this endeavour even at 9AM when most of us were naturally tired and not-fully-focused. other than that, i'm in agreement with the first reviewer that rebecca is brilliant and that…

Reading (about a book every week or two, and it goes fast), journal entries on those readings (can be quite short: quality valued way over quantity), a super-easy final (as long as you go to class or do some of the reading), and either two 5-page papers or a 10-page paper (your choice). She expects you to put real, intelligent thought into your work, but will talk the papers over with you.