Richard Bulliet

Proceed, but with some caution. As a freshman and found it possible to get a good grade without suffering, but not without three important things: 1) go to class, I can't repeat it enough, or at LEAST borrow notes, because you're more likely to know the info that will show up on a test; 2) DO attend the discussion sections, because those boost your grade 10% even if your TA sucks, 3) worker smarter rather than harder when it comes to readings--Bulliet subtracted most of the books on the syllabus (except his own and Khalidi's, big surprise*.*) and added books right before the midterm as well as the final. Therefore, don't waste your time buying books early, count on him to switch, make changes, and if you can, buy books from Barnes and Noble's general section (not the textbook section) so that you can read up and return it, having not wasted money you don't have. Although reading is heavy, pay attention to what he talks about in class and the terms that TAs give you before the exams, and the material is there. No homework of course except for readings as well as discussion readings and discussion attendance. You only have a midterm and a final, but both--especially the latter--are very rigorous, involving several essays (some of which may be based on the reading) and IDs (identifying a group of terms, like "intifada" and "PLO", and explaining how it relates to other terms). Tho…

At first I was considering switching to another lit hum professor, because he would spend most of the time talking about the history of the cultures we read about than the actual content of the book. But I stayed because I was actaully learning. Bulliet was my favorite professor this semester and I will try to squeeze in a Middle EaStern class to have him again. He is funny, engaging, and understands that not everyone has the time to read all of the books on time. He really does not try to embarrass anyone. This class was a gpa booster!

This is a class with such great potential. The explanation in the course bulletin sounds incredibly interesting for anybody interested in the relationship between--primarily--the West and the Islamic world. While Professor Bulliet is extremely knowledgeable about the subject at hand, the course is difficult to digest because it is based on his personal theory--an element of the course which creates some difficulty. Because there is no "source" text for the class material, it is sometimes quite difficult to piece together all of the information given in lectures into some coherent statement. While primary texts were given in required discussion sections (surprise! it's required!), sometimes the TA seemed as clueless as we were about how all of it fits into Bulliet's unexplained grand scheme. This is a class where only the last lecture sums every thing up, and in the meantime you have to conduct personal thought exercises to somehow condense and reconstruct all of the snippits from class. In a way, the class reminded me of writing one of those cracked-out essays for University Writing: you know that you have to come up with some clear product, but nobody can really give you any guidance of how to do so. Looking back on the class, I feel that I learned a lot--but only through doing extensive background research on my own to try and place what the heck we were "learning." This is…

Bulliet is a passable lecturer , more inspiring in his depth and range of knowledge than his ability to convey to students the excitement of the subject matter. Very untheoretical as a historian, which can be refreshing i suppose, but inadequate in the end. He has a phenomenal memory and remembered an essay i wrote for a question on the final when i went to meet him at the end of the term, despite the fact that i never went to office hours. cool and unpretentious

Bulliet is undeniably the greatest history professor I've had at Columbia. More importantly, he's the most creative historian I've come across. If, like me, you've ever felt that historians suffer from a sort of intellectual myopia, Bulliet will singlehandedly restore your faith in the discipline. The man is brilliant. As a bonus, he's also hilarious and genuinely friendly.

It took me a few weeks to get used to Prof. Bulliet's teaching style (he tends not to approach history from a chronological standpoint and sometimes it was hard to fit everything he taught us together into a coherent narrative), but once I did I found class really interesting. He is VERY knowledgable and I learned a lot. Plus, he's funny.

This is a good class to flush out your schedule - its humourous, has virually no reading, the professor has some neat ideas, and the point of the assignments is to bullshit them. Bulliet himself says on the first day the class is pretty much just BS - and he sure comes through on that promise. The entire course has NO organization, and oftentimes Bulliet's rambings seem to be completely fabricated. He has a lot of beef with Jared Diamond (Guns Germs and Steel) which I believe stems from the fact that when Diamond discusses the history of the wheel he doesn't cite old Dick despite the fact that he wrote the book on the wheel (and the camel, for that matter). Though you might feel like the class is a crock due to its wandering, inventive nature, Bulliet's style of looking at history is truly inspiring. He draws on a multitude of sources you won't find in more standard history courses - archeological theory, animal porn websites, classic literature, and modern day pop culture. He is a living testamony to past history culture.

Probably the best professor I could have had for this class. I have no interest in music, have never studied music, do not play a musical instrument, and could die fairly satisfied if none of those things changed. Prof. Bulliet definitely peaked my interest in music, and because of his non-threatening method of teaching, made the class quite enjoyable. I actually listen to classical music now in my spare time, though I still have no idea what I'm listening to... He's very honest with how little he knows about forms, themes, and the specifics of how music is constructed, and made no attempt to force that knowledge on us... I think he's probably a great professor in his own field, but was wasted on this class. It's obviously not his passion. Despite that, he was able to fill up a 2 hour class quite easily with stories and random information that was never tested. One can only imagine what he would be like if he was teaching a class in his field... I would recommend him as a professor in other fields (i don't think he's teaching music again) because he's obviously incredibly intelligent, and if you take the time, very interesting.

Bulliet is a really cool guy. His lectures were always composed of - and often entirely of - anecdotes of his years in Iran. The first day of class he lectured on ancient irrigation systems, which doesn't sound so exciting but turned out ot be really interesting. A couple weeks later we had an actual geography quiz. Admittedly, it was basically just memorizing an atlas but it's about time someone paid attention to geography.

Bulliet is many things, and one of them is a fantastic lecturer. After stumbling onto this class and planning during registration to drop it, I sat mesmerized the first day as Bulliet described the tricks and hacks of casual archaeology. After that, I found myself fascinated by some insight or story each class -- it was the only class I always went to. That (and a short but fairly sweet reading list) is the good news. The bad news is that while I got depth and, at times, breadth from Bulliet's dense and excellent lectures, I felt I wasn't getting a good overall grasp of the material. Normally, that's fine (Eric Foner's Radical Tradition class is like that; his Civil War and Reconstruction class is not). But a midterm, a paper and a final later, I'm not so sure if it's fair to apply such an average (read: heavy) load of synthesis work to what is basically an introductory class. Still, if Bulliet is teaching on a topic that interests you, by all means take him.