PLIR 5500

Professor Harding is an amicable person who is a combination of a good teacher and extremely knowledgeable. He may be considered loquacious since he lectured most of the period, but I found his lectures to be fascinating and I listened to every word. I respected that he always came prepared with notes for what he wanted to address during the class period and that he tempered his lectures with interesting stories. In terms of coursework, the Fall 2016 class consisted of weekly readings either from Collab or from his required books (both were very interesting and I read a little outside of the assigned too). Reading was necessary to participate in the seminar class, and each week addressed some application of an international relations theory to the U.S.-China relationship. We were also assigned 2 different weeks of readings (randomized list of names repeated twice) for which we had to write a short paper (2-4 pages). The discussion paper questions were assigned by him. We were also assigned two term papers (12-15 pages) that were more general, but also had a list of topics to choose from. It was structured enough in my opinion. I was able to improve through the semester from his comments, but it requires work, as any seminar class will. My parting thought is - he is an amazing professor and cares a lot about his students and teaching them well.

Very intelligent and accomplished professor, but he really likes to hear himself talk, so beware. If you want a class that delves deep into the application of international relations theory to U.S.-China relations, then this class will be perfect. If you want to do only issues or only theory, however, this class strikes a bad mix.