PLIR 2020

The class is taught in a very straightforward way with two papers, a midterm, final, and participation. My TA ,Yuji Maeda, was very specific about the way you should draw conclusions in your writing. It should be based off of course material but include your own creativity and argument (though your argument has to be aligned with course material and it was hard to figure out that line). The material was not difficult to grasp, but the way they expected you to write made it difficult to get a high B or an A.

Overall, I would recommend this class to anyone who wants a solid overview of great power politics through a historical lens. There is a lot of history in this class but it is woven into the international relations theory. Professor Owen is so kind and very knowledgeable. Occasionally lectures are dry, but not in an overly painful way. Grading was based on 2 short papers (1,000 words), a midterm (essay based), final (essay based), and discussion section participation. Not difficult material, but grading is very subjective based on the TA.

I really liked this class, really doable readings each week which are from authors like Sagan, Mearsheimer, etc. Basically this class is split into two sections: the first half studies realism the second half studies liberalism. I think this course does a really good introductory job of just teaching the simple tenets of each of these IR theories. Owen is a brilliant guy and is sooo sweet, his lectures can definitely get boring because he doesn't seem to structure his PPTs super effectively since most of the time he kind of just drones on about historical cases but the PPTs aren't too bad and when he's introducing theories and their components I find he is more interesting than when he's just going over the historical cases and their theoretical applications. Overall would definitely take this if you just want an introduction to realism and liberalism, which come back strong in lots of later IR courses. Alexis is an amazing TA

I wouldn't really recommend this class. Owen is distinguished in the field (he wrote the book you use in the second half of the course) but lectures did not add much. Two short essays, a midterm, and a final. Probably my biggest issue was how clear it was throughout that this was the first time being offered by Owen. The questions on the final tied in fairly well to course material and were not terrible to write about, but the potential midterm questions featured more obscure information from lecture. Also, despite being at the 2000 level, the reading load was about what is standard for 3000 level classes here. I ended up doing fine in the class, but with the amount of work, you should just take a 3000 level class and have that count towards that requirement for the politics major.

The content and structure of this class was interesting. It was basically a debate between realism and liberalism with half of the course focusing on each. There was a lot of reading from both the textbooks (one of which was written by Professor Owen) and from primary sources, but it was necessary to understanding the content of the class. Lectures focused mostly on historical examples, while the readings explained the paradigms. I had Ruixing Cao as my TA. Discussions were mandatory, but they were also extremely helpful in understanding the sometimes complex primary sources. There were two papers, a midterm, and a final. I found papers to be graded kind of harshly; clear explanations and elaborations on material is necessary to succeed on the essays. The midterm was 2 essays, while the final was 3. The questions for the exams were provided in advance, which was helpful. The final was easier than the midterm, mainly just because there was more time. Despite the workload, I would definitely recommend this class.

This class was okay. John Owen definitely knows what he's talking about, but really rambled a lot especially with some of his historical examples and extended metaphors. His style of lecturing is not very interesting and I found myself zoning out. The reading is fairly interesting though, and I honestly learned more from it than from the lecture. Grading is based on two papers, a midterm, and a final. I thought everything was graded fairly (maybe a little harsh on the papers, but not too bad). It's one of the first times this class has been offered, I think, so maybe he'll change things up for next time. With a little more structure and coherence I think this could be a really interesting class, but for now the lecture style makes it difficult to learn anything.

Interesting class but the grading is unnecessarily tough, 2 papers, midterm and final essay based