ENGL 2010

I highly recommend this class. I am not necessarily interested in comparative politics but it's an easy way to knock out the second year writing requirement. You read A LOT but the books are classics that everyone should read eventually. It's fairly easy to get B's on the papers, but if you work really hard an A is plausible. He tries really hard to be funny too, so the class really isn't that dreadful.

Professor Cantor is a wonderful professor. He tries to make class engaging and says some humorous things during class that make you giggle in the midst of a somewhat dull topic on literary history. We read 13 works throughout the course, which is about one work per week, amounting to roughly 5 hours a week in reading or about 300 pages per week. This can become quite excessive especially on top of other social science/humanities courses. I would not recommend taking this course at the same time as another history class that comes with a lot of reading. Additionally, the course covers literary history from the Greeks (who Professor Cantor worships) through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. A lot of these works are somewhat boring and can become incredibly dull, especially when the subject matter and themes from work to work carry over quite frequently. The only thing that makes listening to Cantor talk about these works is his knowledge of them. This guy went to Harvard both grad and undergrad, so you don't want to miss his knowledge, in other words he's a great professor and lecturer, but the subject matter is dense. Additionally, this is not a course I would recommend for the second writing requirement. There are tons of classes out there to fulfill this requirement, but this one was pretty boring and the subject matter stays the same from essay topic to essay topic. If you're into it go for it, but I wouldn't take it if you aren't interested in the literature. Easy to get Bs on the essays but really hard to get an A or an A-. Finally, DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH BEN LEE AS YOUR TA. He is the absolute worst, his discussion sections provided me with little information about the lectures that Cantor gave and he offered no support when it came to seeing him in office hours regarding essays. His criticism was not constructive and his office hours were in the Fine Arts Cafe - quite a ways away from central grounds where most students are centered.

Prof Cantor is a brilliant guy, and he makes the literature interesting. It's definitely not light reading, but that's a History of Lit class for you. He's really good at connecting the literature though. I ended up reading all of the books with a similar scope, focusing on the things that connected them instead of what makes them different from each other. Again, that's definitely part of the struggle of doing a book a week covering over 2000 years of material. But you really don't want to miss out on Cantor's knowledge of this stuff. The essays were OK to write, and the final wasn't that bad (albeit long).

Not my favorite course I've taken, although a good overview of the subject. The reading consisted of about a book a week with three papers and a final (consisting of passage IDs and 2 essays). Your grade on your papers will really depend on what TA you have, but it is pretty hard to get higher than a B+. If you are interested in this type of literature, take the class. Otherwise, I might recommend taking another course.