Ross Posnock

I love this guy. Every day he would come into class and just start saying beautiful words. Whenever he asked us questions he would take us seriously and foster meaningful conversation. His urban modernism class was my first English class in college and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The workload is pretty light and he doesn't try to play tricks on the final exam (quote identification). He's a nice, reasonable, insightful man who just likes to read and talk about literature.

Ross Posnock is the best teacher I have ever had. Though the course was listed as a lecture, only 7 students enrolled so it turned into a seminar-style class very quickly. I actually did all the readings because I wanted to understand the genius of his observations; he is one of the most eloquent men I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. Though he makes his liberal politics quite obvious, he brings in very well-curated commentary to discuss each text (such as the art critic TJ Clark to talk about Stephen Crane), which he always reads from hand-written notes. He repeated themes often, but made me love the books we read and provided useful comments on my papers. I only regret not going to his office more, which is lined from floor to ceiling with books. He is a true intellectual.

Professor Posnock is a brilliant man. He is a terrible lecturer, though. His lectures were completely disjointed and it seemed as if he would rather be doing anything else besides teaching this course. We didn't even get a complete syllabus until the third week of classes. He also assigned papers seemingly out of the blue and allowed 5-7 days to complete them, always over holidays, (Fall Break and Thanksgiving). He is the kind of professor that has spent so much time with the works assigned that his knowledge actually gets in the way of teaching. If you pay close attention to everything he says you can glean some themes, but, honestly, my education was not enriched by this course. I just wanted to get through this class and took very little away about the subject. Also, I am an English Major, so I think this is the worst possible literature class for anyone looking to fulfill core requirements. Like many have said, I am sure his seminars are very rewarding, but this lecture course was virtually useless.

loved posnock. a total no bullshit professor - he comes into class on time, starts talking whether or not people are quiet, spits knowledge for 85 minutes, stops and walks out. he is encouraging; he never shot down people's comments (some of them were worthy of shoot downs, i might add), but rather compliments them if they are insightful and engages with them if he disagrees. his lectures are consistently interesting and i would often find myself surprised when i looked up at the clock at the end of the class and it was almost over. strongly suggested class and prof.

Posnock might be one of the most polarizing professors in the department. People love him or hate him—and most people hate him. On the first day of Realism & Naturalism, there were about 30 students, many of whom literally pulled out their computers and dropped the course part way through the lecture. I think in total about 5 of us stuck it out for the semester, and I'm glad I did. He might be brusque and eccentric, but he's absurdly smart and quite funny. He's also very willing to meet with you outside of class to help you develop paper ideas or to answer any questions. He does have a very clear political point of view, so if you skew conservative be warned. The theme of the class also wasn't very clear, and I think on every handout he gave us he renamed the class. I think the most appropriate name for the class would be "Novels Ross Posnock Likes." In the end, his teaching style really grew on me and he presented interesting readings of a lot of classic novels. If you're on the fence, I highly recommend you give him a chance.

Professor Posnock was way too hands off, and frankly, seemed like he didn't want to be teaching the class. Most people had no idea what was going on in the class or even what book we were reading because we were going off a vague, undated syllabus that wasn't in any sort of recognizable order. He was completely unapproachable, condescending and seemed to have no regard for his students as people with lives and would refuse to answer emails and assigned us long essays with only 3 days to do them, often over a holiday (Thanksgiving). His distance was very discouraging of enthusiasm for the course. The TAs seemed nearly as intimidated and clueless as to what was going on in the class as the students were, and yet graded the papers harshly with no explanation of what they were looking for in the first place. That said, Professor Posnock is unbelievably eloquent and his lectures were very interesting, in spite of the fact that it was often obvious he didn't prepare for them. Also, the readings assigned were admittedly all masterpieces, but the study we did of the books was almost entirely about content and the biography of the author and had almost nothing to do with style or literary analysis. Often it seemed like he hadn't even attempted a lecture plan and was filling up space with reading pages and pages of the text aloud and reciting interesting but relatively useless facts abo…

relatively light reading for english class. great novels. 3 papers, all relatively short. easy peasy final.

3 essays, not too long but each longer than the last, and a very out of place and random final. we read about 7 books as well as a few short stories and poems, but it almost seemed like he didn't expect us to do the reading.

Two 5-7 pages papers, 1 10-12 page paper -- pretty reasonable for an upper-level English course

It's not surprising that Posnock has pretty good reviews. It's a bit annoying that we're not more cynical of his agenda though. For each lesson, he will give us the popular public opinion and interpretations of the book, which he is in complete agreement with. Most of these interpretations follow the neo-liberal scheme, and one with a different, refreshing take does not even have a chance (seriously, there is no time in the class) to present their views. I hear you all yelling at me already: "this is a lecture class!" and I hear you, but if we can't bring in alternate interpretations, he should take the responsibility to do it himself. Also, once he said something , I can't remember what now, but something about how the muslim faith is all off, and there was a silence in the class after he said it and we just kept moving on. We sat there like a sedated bunch of wussies, the same bunch of wussies writing these 'posnock's great' reviews. He does get interesting when talking about philosophy, I'll give him that. He starts making fluid sense. Also, his arrogance can be entertaining; he often scoffs at remarks made by other critics or writers. But his lectures just ramble on for the most part. In one class I wrote down nearly everything he said, and looking at it I could identify no coherent thought or link between the ideas. I didn't know what to "walk away" with, so to speak, aft…