ANTH 2440

*TA: Leah Tedesco
I came into this class expecting a mix of film studies and linguistics/Anthropology, but it was definitely slanted towards the latter. The class covered films from the early 1910s all the way to 2018. Professor Lefkowitz is a pretty engaging lecturer and mixes in clips from the various movies in his lectures. The lectures heavily feature information from the readings, and use that information to go over certain things and scenes from the movies. They can be a bit draining at times (especially at 9 AM), but are pretty interesting once you learn to take the anthropologist's point of view. I definitely see some things in films differently after taking this class, especially relating to speech and representation.
There are usually three readings assigned each week (one per class period + discussion), but none are too heavy once you get the hang of them. There is only a final exam at the end, no midterm or final project. He takes attendance each class by having students write a thought on the movie or do a short reading quiz (which you'll get right if you even just skim the reading). The largest time consumer (and portion of the grade) is twice-weekly group worksheets that discuss the films and readings, which definitely got to be a pain after a while as it's hard to meet twice a week, outside of class, with a group.
The discussion section wasn't super helpful to me, and my TA had a hard time jumpstarting the class discussions and keeping everyone engaged. The readings that we had to do before each section also rarely applied to that week's discussion (usually the following week's), which got pretty confusing after a while.
I definitely recommend this class if you're looking to get a new perspective on lots of movies - it's definitely super interesting.

Keep in mind when taking this course there is a strong emphasis on language (phonetics, dialects, etc.) and that the movies are watched outside of class on top of other homework. The class was pretty easy until the final, but make sure to take notes on all of the readings. Also Professor Lefkowitz is not the most approachable professor on the planet. I was really excited to take this class because of shared interests with him and the cinema element sounded really interesting, but it fell flat for me. Most of my peers that I talked to felt the same. This class was not terrible by any means, but not as intriguing as I had hoped. If this is your first time taking an anthropology class, I would recommend going a different route. I came to UVA planning to be an anthropology major, but after this class I feel like my time is better doing something else. Again, not a BAD class, but in all honesty, not a great one either.

there was lot of interesting topics covered, but a lot of busy work and readings too. i wish that some weeks we could have heard more discourse on the topic rather than just the professor's take on it. it all seemed well-intentioned, but it was obvious that some weeks were valued more than others, which felt weird when each week focused on a different marginalized group's representation in film. the grade is mostly from worksheets that you do as a group twice a week every week based off of the movie and some other show/clip. the rest of the grade was from discussion section, attendance quizzes, and the final. the final relies a lot on the readings (of which there are a lot). leah was my ta and they were great! they would ask general questions for us to talk about in groups and when the readings were tricky, leah would spend extra time breaking down the terms and important takeaways. the section part of the grade was from participation, but if you are worried at any point about that just bring it up in private. we had to do weekly reading responses on collab, but it was just a sentence or two about something you found in the reading so it really wasn't hard.

Very easy class, highly recommend to anyone who wants to view movies in a new light. Class structure is basically just to make sure to read the reading for the class, and watch one movie a week. There is also group worksheets - due two a week. They're fairly easy and repetitive; Professor Lefkowitz says to work in a group to do it but you can easily just split up the work (although that is not the intention of the group sheets). Final exam is a multiple choice exam on collab that focuses on the readings and lecture, so make sure to pay attention to those! Readings don't take longer than 2 hours a week to be honest. There are two textbooks required for this class but you can find both online. Professor Lefkowitz is a great lecturer! Most of the notes taken are directly copied from his powerpoint and also he records the class. For my discussion section I talked max like twice through the whole semester and only missed one class, but I was still able to get a 96% on participation.

easy but boring. would not recommend this class unless you want an easy A. I learned nothing in this course.