Samuel Moyn

Sam Moyn is a good argument for why professors under the age of 50 shouldn't get tenure. He's super-hyped but truly disappointing. He's a decent lecturer but the structure of the class falls apart pretty quickly. He's willing to ask and answer questions in lecture but doesn't do enough to challenge students when they say inane or simply incorrect things. He tried very hard to be a personable, young, cool professor ("Hi, I'm Sam") but the minute you asked for help or even asked a question that front disappeared immediately. There are certainly more boring lectures, but I've never taken a more disappointing class overall. Think twice.

Professor Moyn is quietly brilliant, so it may take you a class or two to realize that he is likely one the greatest professors you will have the pleasure of taking. Our Literature Humanities class was based primarily in discussion, relying on contributions from our class. Moyn nevertheless manages to infuse his fascinating and worldview-changing insights into every discussion. He leads the class in such a way that each and every person feels comfortable and does contribute to discussion. Our entire class was enamored of him and his class. He is also a genuinely great guy who invited us to numerous lunches and even to his home twice for dinner and a movie. That's all just icing on the cake that is his constantly engaging class, to use a terrible analogy. Samuel Moyn should absolutely have a gold nugget. Take a class with him if you can, you won't regret it.

I thought lit hum was very good but thanks to prof moyn CC gets even better. I had no background in political philosophy, had never read anything by plato or aristotle so I got so much out of this class, and professor moyn made it such an enjoyable and easy experience. Prof moyn is very clever but very humble. He always engages students in discussions, throwing in jokes with his dry sense of humor which you will appreciate. He allows students to talk a lot in class but never fails to get his point across and makes sure we all know what we are supposed to know even when discussions start getting out of hand. He sometimes even e-mails us after class if he thinks we haven't fully understood what the author's main argument is. He gives a good number of choice for paper topics and they are all interesting and thought-provoking. He gives long insightful comments to your papers which really helps you improve. He also gives summary sheets which helps you see the whole picture of the authors through time clearly. If you get him for CC you're so lucky. I'm really sad he's not teaching it this spring semester.

Such an amazingly great class. The readings were mainly novels, plays, and philosophy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It changed my idea of what history is -- not just wars and economics but also ideas and aspirations about existence in society. The professor also added paintings and music to the lectures, especially in the beginning. He is not the most charismatic lecturer, but he prepares really carefully (putting outlines on the web) and speaks clearly about interesting topics. I have some criticisms. The first half of the course was much better than the second half. There was mandatory section, which didn't need to happen every week. The final exam was too abstract. But all in all, this class changed the way I think and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in an advanced version of ArtHum Lit Hum and CC put together.

Sam is a great professor. His lectures were almost always engaging, even engaging enough to keep me awake at 9 a.m. He brought up great points and questions in his lectures and used a lot of helpful metaphors to clarify some of the denser, more academic language of the readings. He sometimes had to rush through parts of his lectures and skip entire pages of the powerpoint that seem like they would've been valuable to discuss, but that will always be difficult. The class was extremely interesting and eye-opening. It helped me approach human rights in a different way and provided a lot of context for understanding human rights. If you are at all interested in human rights, this is a great class to take. The only downside is that if you are a bleeding-heart humanitarian, you may come away feeling a bit disillusioned. Sam definitely presents the material in a somewhat critical way, but I think that that's a good thing and that it's one of the ways he gets you to really engage with these issues.

I cannot imagine a better professor than Samuel Moyn. His lit hum class was an absolute joy, and I looked forward to it every day. This seemed to be the general consensus of the class--we got together for lunch after every class and, for the entire time, talked about how much we all loved lit hum. With his brilliant insight, Sam will make you love every book you read. He manages to share these insights while still keeping the class exciting and discussion-based. Sam removed Crime and Punishment and the Decameron from the syllabus so that we could have a chance to look more carefully at the books we did read, and with less of a time constraint. He also added two Tolstoy stories and David Mitchell's "The Cloud Atlas" all of which were all awesome. I would absolutely recommend that anyone try to take a class with this guy before graduating--it will completely change your college experience for the better.

Okay, obviously the man is brilliant. Although he may appear modest when he neglects to tell your class he is a genius, he is quite cocky. People in the class tried to be nice to him and get to know him, and every single time he just pretty much ignored them and acted like he had something better to do than reciprocate. He let discussion get out of control to the point where some people were talking more than Moyn during his class. Even though I never really talked to him or had a personally bad experience with him, I thought his attitude and unwillingness to help students improve was a real turnoff. I wouldn't have taken his class in hindsight. Not that it was a miserable time, but you could stand to improve as a student if you shopped elsewhere.

Professor Moyn, or Sam, as he will introduce himself, is a truly fantastic professor, and probably one of the best that I have had here at Columbia. His lectures are engaging and interesting, and he does a nice job of inserting some humor in there as well to keep the energy in the classroom up. He presents a lot of information in class, and some of the concepts that he brings up might be a little overwhelming. (He's quite brilliant-- there were definitely words he used that I found myself heading to the dictionary to look up...) This is definitely not an easy A. The material is complex, and it will really force you to think way outside of the box. You'll probably come away from the class with more questions than answers, but I think this is a good thing! His powerpoints might not make a lot of sense on their own, so I definitely recommend going to all the classes and taking notes that correlate with the slides. This will help in studying for the final exam and will also help when you are writing your papers. Plus, it wasn't exactly a chore to go to this class. I really enjoyed it and definitely came away from the experience feeling like I had been challenged intellectually. Also, appreciate this reading list. There is a lot of material, but it is manageable, and really interdisciplinary, which I think was a huge strength of the class overall. I'd definitely recommend this clas…

Two 5-7 page papers, midterm & final, lots of reading as per usual for Lit Hum, but he tries to make it as doable as possible

If you get Sammy for CC, welcome to Core Curriculum heaven. Although I did not enjoy most of the readings, I think Professor Moyn is one of the best teachers I've ever had. His great, [ultra]dry sense of humor and zero-bullshit attitude made our whole class love him. He encourages discussion and debate--and gets it, even at 9 am. The best thing about him is his explanation of seemingly incomprehensible philosophical texts (think Kant); he'll give you great handouts and diagrams that will make your friends in other CC sections incredibly jealous. He's a very smart man and a truly talented young professor. You'll find yourself working hard just to get one of his few great compliments, in class or on a paper.