Valentine Daniel

All the reviews below are true: EVD is quite possibly the kindest, most caring man you will ever meet, but he is not structured one bit. He is incredibly smart, to the point where he gets so excited about sharing his knowledge, that he gets too far ahead of himself and loses you in all of these intellectual thoughts. No matter- as long as you do the readings and go to his office for help, you will do fine. He is more than happy to meet with you around YOUR schedule (he once made time to meet me at 10 pm!), and to explain things as slowly as you need. No one is every stupid or too dumb for him; he will break down every view and thought into the smallest of chunks if necessary. To reiterate a few points below: if you like order and structure, get out now. If you like a little humor and chaos, and want a professor that cares about you, then take this class. You will not forget him.

Val is a phenomenal teacher and a lovely human being, and I have learned more from him than any other professor at Columbia. He is brilliant, funny and genuinely committed to provoking the intellectual curiosity of his students. This course altered not only my academic thinking but my way of thinking about pretty much everything in my daily life. However, if careening miles off the syllabus the second week of class, total chaos in the communication of assignments and rambling lectures with no clear subject make you nervous, he's not your guy. If you need to know what to expect from a course, like to know what the reading for every week will be and get things graded in a timely fashion, you will not like Val, I imagine, for any course. I don't say that derogatorily, he's just a peculiar guy who isn't the right fit for folks who need structure to learn at their best. For those who enjoy a little chaos, however, he's unforgettable. [I am a grad student which I hope is cool w/r/t posting on this site]

Val is a very witty guy. He speaks well, and listening to him is a pleasure. Interpretations of Culture is not a good class. Its syllabus is scattered and asks for too much while giving too little. Professor Daniel clearly was not fond of it (and could ot change it, as it is a standard course). Val made the classes very interesting, despite the fact that he didn't really talk about the readings. Every time the class got out, or during discussion sections, people who had obviously never read Durkheim or Bordieu before complained about lack of clarity and whined about Val's lack of focus on the readings. As an anthro major, having Val as a teacher was a much welcome relief, as he knows how to tell a good story while explicating an idea. In any case, I recommend taking a course with him (I've taken two, this one and CC, and the other one was AWESOME). I do NOT recommend taking this course, but if you are an anthro major you will have to, so good luck.

In spite of the following email conversation from last May, I still have a soft spot for Prof. Val Daniel. I think it’s because of the day he mumbled something about being sent to the corner as a young schoolboy in Sri Lanka, or the infamous tales of an Indian wedding in New Jersey. Or perhaps the day he reflected on the discipline of cultural anthropology and said, “Something so utterly useless... must be the discipline of my heart.” And that warmed my heart. The man is brilliant. (1) Dear ____: Did you submit the two papers that were required of you in the course? And if you did, please let me know what grades you received for them as soon as possible. Thank you. E. Valentine Daniel (Professor of Anthropology) (2) Prof. Daniel, As far as I know, for Social and Cultural Theory, there was only one paper required, a midterm, and a final. I submitted the term paper to [the TA], but I do not know the grade. Thanks, Me (3) Dear ____, There were two papers due, not one. And did you present at least one? And what grade did you receive for it? E. Valentine Daniel (Professor of Anthropology) (4) ____, I am sorry, I stand corrected. But do tell me what grades you received for your paper and your mid-term. I don't seem to have a record of it and [the TA] has taken off for the holidays, it seems. Val Daniel

Val Daniel is one interesting character. I learned a lot in this class, but I know that a lot of my classmates found Val's teaching style strange: very unorganized, with lectures being about whatever Val feels like talking about, or *thinks* what we were supposed to have read. Great and engaging lecturer. T.A., Anush Kapadia, was also an engaging lecturer and fair as well: good thing too, since he does the grading. Just a note, Val missed the last three classes we were supposed to have.

Val is one of the smartest and nicest people I have ever met. While he can occasionally be confusing in his approach to explaining certain texts, his knowledge of all of them is very thorough, just pay close attention. He is an amazing professor and an even greater person. Some people may complain that he can get tangential, which is true, but each of his tangents has a clear purpose and does relate directly to a point that he is trying to make. Additionally, while the paper time limits (a weekend) can be tight, if you have done appropriate reading they will all make sense and are manageable. He is also flexible with accommodating everyones schedule so that you wont be swamped. If anything is unclear he will always make time to meet with you out of class to help...just make sure you make the appointments in person because he is not the best with e-mails. Above all else, he cares that all his students learn the material - he will make all accommodations necessary for each individual who wants to learn. He is one of the best people I have ever met. I will always remember him and his class.

This class was a disaster. Professor Daniel is clearly brilliant, but he should not have taught an intro-level anthropology course. Besides the occasional joke, most lectures were disjointed and way, way too detailed. he would have been better suited for graduate courses. While neglecting to realize that this was the first anthro course for MOST students, Professor Daniel just skipped over to intense theory. And that's all it was - theory. I was definitely hoping for more ethnography in the survey course. He was also disorganized. The TAs were sweet but they clearly butted heads with him and couldn't do much to stop him. As Val's tangents got longer and longer, our syllabus got shorter and shorter. We were talking about Marx up until the last week, and it was the second thing on the reading list. Though I doubt he'll be teaching this course ever again, hold out for someone else like Pemberton or Povinelli.

Val Daniel is probably one of the more odd albeit entertaining teachers I have ever had. His lectures follow no path and he never knows what the assigned readings were for the week or even what AUTHORS he included in his syllabus. Even if you can find the books he assigns (no store seems to carry them and the reader took two weeks to be ready) you won't read them so don't waste your money. The material is interesting if you want an independent study course masked as an INTRODUCTORY anthropology section. The funniest part of Val's lectures is when he starts talking about Indian weddings in New Jersey and when little kids run around naked on beaches. The man is a nut. His class was totally worth sitting through as long as he didn't expect much of you as far as being able to regurgitate his incoherent blabbler. The only problem is....by the time the final comes around Val realizes he hasn't taught anything all semester and so wants to make right by grading your final like it was supposed to be written by the grad student TAing your class. Completely ridiculous. You don't do anything all semester....then you take an impossible final that leaves your hand aching for days, because the test is about 30 short essays on authors you haven't even heard him mention once in class. A sample question from the final (I remember it to this day) was: "Describe meaning for Marx." WHAT?!....nuff…

Val Daniel is definitely a fascinating person, and he definitely knows his stuff. If I were making a list of Columbia professors to invite to dinner parties and have long tangential conversations with, he'd definitely be on it. However, if I had the chance to redo this semester, I would not take this course. Partially this is just because I didn't find the material that interesting, but some people did. If you're big on highly theoretical stuff, and you don't mind treating theory as if it's fact, you might like this class. If you're like me, and you think a lot of theory is irrelevant mental masturbation by academics who like to draw diagrams and make up new words, you'll probably find it frustrating. The lectures are usually interesting, and Professor Daniel has a good sense of humor, but the material in the lectures often has little to do with the reading, and is usually out of sync with the syllabus. This makes it difficult to prepare for discussions- half the time nobody, including the professor, knew what readings we were supposed to have done by a particular day.

Val Daniel (EVD) is an acquired taste, and it takes time to get used to him. Expect your tests and essays to be misplaced at some point during the semester. Don't be surprised if your class syllabus is revised two, three, or maybe four times, causing Val to schedule "optional" Friday and/or Sunday CC classes that are frequently canceled. Despite my initial reservations, I stuck with Val CC section and as the year progressed, he grew on me. I have come to regard EVD's CC class as one of the best classes I have ever taken. As previous reviewers pointed out, he's hysterical, wacky, and one of the most entertaining professors I have ever had. I highly recommend his section. Despite his absentmindedness, Val has a remarkably profound understanding of the CC texts; a considerable amount of effort is required on your part to appreciate the philosophical arguments that Val tries to bring to light; many of them are very abstract and esoteric. While Val's CC section comes off as an unconventional and easygoing one (and it, more or less, is easygoing in the sense that he doesn't enforce the "mandatory" discussion board posts, makes all tests take-home, and is lenient with deadlines, which he himself mixes up), this does not mean that you can ace the class without a decent effort. This is NOT the class that you can get away with pseudo-philosophical bullshit during class discussions and o…