Rhiannon Stephens

Midterm, final, 3 map quizzes, secondary and primary source readings twice a week, 2 primary source in-class analytical essays

A really unique class situated at the bridge between two academic discourses. The professors are both experts in their respective fields and also a research team (who is doing really awesome, innovative work) outside of class — they know this space because they're pioneering it so there's tons to learn! 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2024 Course: HISTUN3712_001_2024_3-AfricanClimateandHistory : HISTUN3712_001_2024_3 - African Climate and History Instructor: Jason Smerdon

I learned how to analyze primary and secondary sources from history.

n/a 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2024 Course: HSWMUN2761_001_2024_3-GENDER&SEXUALITYINAFRICA : HSWMUN2761_001_2024_3 - GENDER & SEXUALITY IN AFRICA Instructor: Rhiannon Stephens

We had reflections about the reading due each week which she grades and provides feedback. I thought she was a pretty fair grader. I forget if we had a midterm paper but I know for sure we have a lengthy research paper due at the very end.

15-20 pages of reading per class, 4 papers ranging from 4-10 pages, a presentation on one of the readings, and a one page response to a class activity. Easy sauce. Tie in the themes covered in class in an intelligent way, and you're bound to get an A.

As a lot of people have said, her lectures are pretty dry. When she's talking she sometimes doesn't seem like she wants to be giving the lecture at all. She presented all the historical information in a straightforward, fact-driven way, without much historical analysis or anything else to make it interesting. I think the class could have been really interesting so it's a shame the material was presented this way.

This course helps review the readings from the syllabus that you’ll use in your assignments.

The class itself was kind of dry and dragged on because it's up to the students to bring up topics they found interesting about the reading. And we do that for each of the readings so its really important to actually read for this class. Of course Professor Stephens puts her own input a lot of the time but the format did kind of make the two hours go by slow. Despite all of this, Professor Stephens is very kind and soft-spoken. The class was super interesting mainly because of the readings. She curates a really solid list. And her own work, which involves using linguistics to make historical analyses based off of the evolution of word, is super cool. The class definitely challenged me to rethink meanings of wealth and poverty.

Professor Stephens is a fine professor. I had her for African Civilizations, a seminar Core requirement. She is straightforward, fair, and unassuming. She isn't going to knock your socks off, but she definitely knows her subject matter. I would take a class with her again. She expects you to participate, going as far as to call on you directly if you haven't been contributing to the discussion. Just do the reading and the rest takes care of itself.