Richard Sacks

Let me preface the review by saying that I love Professor Sacks and that his passion and love for the English language is infectious. It is my own personal opinion that it would be a privilege to take a class with him and that your own love for the English Sonnet will be stirred and invigorated by his course. That being said... is the Sonnet in English an Easy A? Absolutely not. Despite the reading being fairly short and easy to digest (after all, most of the poems are only fourteen lines) he has a lot of supplemental reading that I would definitely suggest you do if you want a good grade in the class. Professor Sacks expects a lot of his students... as well as he should! But he never asks more from his students than what he knows that they are capable of. The main thing that he is looking for is improvement in their skills of analysis so as long as you show progress throughout the duration of the course you really can't fare that badly. Don't think that means that you should strategically give no effort on your first couple of posts and up your effort in incremental doses. Professor Sacks is surprisingly astute at detecting when students are not trying their best... and even when putting forth your best work, he will not hold back in tearing your writing apart limb from limb! But that will only aid in the gradual process of improvement. Delightfully humorous and a tad self de…

Professors Sacks is the man. He deserves a gold nugget. His class is everything I hoped for in a Columbia core class. He really knows his stuff, but he never dominates the discussion. He uses his knowledge of the material to enhance the discussions, but he encourages you to draw your own conclusion. He values your opinion. He's so so smart, but not pretentious at all. He will ask the most deep-cutting questions but still keeps a great sense of humor throughout the class. I wish all my professors were like him. He's such a cool dude. As far as grading goes, he doesn't assign much work, but he expects your papers to be thoughtful and well written. Honestly, if you're a good writer and insightful reader, he'll give you an A. If not, well then you're shit out of luck.

It's a little hard for me to criticize Professor Sacks, as I like him a great deal as a person and enjoyed getting to know him. He's basically an obsessive about poetry and various mythologies, and he has enthusiasm to burn once you get him going on a subject of interest. He also does a good deal of outside research to prepare for discussion, so he was always introducing us to helpful outside sources (what's more, he designed this interesting website for the class to facilitate the use of online resources alongside our written responses--that was pretty helpful). But despite all these qualities to recommend him, he can be a bit of a tyrant in class. He gets worked up very easily, and he presents very creative interpretive arguments (which are enjoyable and thought-provoking, even if their validity can be questionable at times)--but he can be very quick to shoot down points raised by others that seem just as valid. He also doesn't really teach all that much; he just expects you to participate in the discussion and learn through osmosis, which, I suppose, works for some people. He dominated most of our discussions with his opinions, which, like I said, were very interesting; it just would have been nice to have had a more open discussion. Still, I like him so much on a personal level that I can forgive this. On the plus side, he responds to e-mails very quickly, will meet with y…

He is extremely nice, very self-effacing, very very very committed to his work, both teaching and studying (which I find to be rare at this institution). For him, it's all about close-reading and the texts--if you don't like doing that, you will not like this class. His major problem is that his thinking on the texts, which I think is fundamentally sound and ultimately very interesting, is nonetheless pretty disorganized, and I (and many others) found the lectures very very hard to follow once the class had moved beyond stories we had all heard and number of times and read at least twice (Odyssey, Iliad, Metamorphoses). But he really seems like he wants you to do well, that is, wants those who are decent at close-reading to do well, because he bends over backwards in assigning to fit your needs.

I had Prof. Sacks for Myth and Literature, and it was an extremely informative and engaging class. Ancient epic poems (Greek, Roman, Norse, and Celtic) are apparently Prof. Sacks' thing, and he has a frightening, frightening amount of knowledge about them. From what I gathered over the course of the class, he understands ancient Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, French, possibly German, and Celtic (both Welsh and Irish varieties). His analyses of the texts are thus extremely, extremely, detailed. He works as much as possible with the original language of the epics (though the class reads translations), and his lectures are crammed full of extremely elegant linguistic/thematic connections that are really just fantastic. It's almost impossible not to learn something new every class. So, as far as lectures go, this guy's great, assuming you have some kind of rudimentary interest in learning about ancient mythic systems. However, his grading's on the hard side (especially considering few students in the class have the tools or ability to analyze the texts as deeply as he does). Be warned. Also, it's worth commenting that in my year, there were three different possible grading tracks -- one involving just the final and the midterm, and two others involving either three 3-page analyses or a 10-page final paper. This flexibility was, for me at least, really convenient and helpful, especiall…

The most amazing english teacher i have ever had. not only is sacks hillarious (and he does his best to be entertaining), but his brilliance defies words. he is not afraid to just bask in the beauty of a poem or even a sentence. be warned, however, that he is serious about literature. he will spend hours on one passage, and he 'analyzes the hell' out of everything, as another reviewer wrote. but if you're serious about english, then his class is an unforgettable (and very valuable) experience.

Professor Sacks embodies everything I imagined the Columbia Core experience to be and more. He is dedicated to his class of undergraduates (rare for this university), and he brings interesting materials/supplements to class. He brings the perfect combination of discussion and lecturing/direction to the course. He is quirky and slightly in your face about backing up your ideas with evidence from the text and the evolving dynamic of various themes/motifs, but that is exactly how a professor should be. The only downside to his class was that he cut out a few works due to extended looks at Genesis and The Iliad (for fall semester). But, he did offer optional one-day reviews of the works we skipped. I cannot recommend Richard Sacks enough, and he is by all definitions a gold nugget professor.

Short online postings most weeks, and a term paper at the end. Contrary to what an earlier commenter said, I found his grading to be exceedingly fair. Also, given that this class focused on very close reads, the reading was minimal.

For this section we had to read 3 books-Hamlet, to the lighthouse, and omeros (a 300 page modern epic) and a handful of poems. Because these texts are all incredibly dense and there's a good chance you've read them before, Professor Sacks analyzes the hell out of the language. Sometimes this can be really interesting, especially with the poetry, but others, he goes overboard and spends entire classes on minute sections with little emphasis on the whole and/or themes. In the end, it depends on whether you care about the larger stuff. Professor Sacks is ridiculously smart and I can't imagine anyone doing close textual analysis better than he can, but it's not a course in the lit hum tradition of big ideas. His style is scattered, with him throwing out ideas more than organizing them, but he's such a brain it's at least interesting to watch. he's also an incredibly nice guy and is very understanding. I recommend him and the class, but it's important to know what you're getting into with the close reading.

I will say it. Sacks deserves a gold nugget. He gives his all to every class, and if you do too then you will get an experience you will read for a life time. He is a gift to our university. That being said Sacks treats his students like adults, and if you don't act like one: you don't read the texts but try to bullshit your way with spark-notes, or just fall asleep (and come on guys, that is adolescent. Why are you even in the Ivy League?) then you will probably get nothing from this class and wonder what the hell everyone else was talking about. He leaves it up to you and teaches this course almost as if it is some type of graduate do what ever you want thing, instead of a freshmen identification of quotes course. He asks more than most professors seem to, but he also gives you more. He cuts the readings and the paper word limits, so this might have the most realistic expectations of any LitHum class but he also asks you to go the furthest with your ideas. I loved this course, and I reaffirm that he deserves a gold nugget. If you can switch to him I'd do it for sure. But honestly only if you buy the whole Ivy-league thing and the intrinsic value of knowledge and the joy of philosophy etc etc. If you wanna coast and come to class hung over, I'd look somewhere else, you'll probably be miserable, and give more work to other students (see below). So I say if you have Sacks then…