HIEU 3802

This is one of the best classes I've taken at UVA. The reading can be remarkably opaque (Heidegger and sometimes Nietzsche seem as if they're from another planet), but the assignments are generally short. And more importantly, Megill puts it all together in his terrific, if occasionally rambling lectures. Really, my biggest complaint is that the course is only a semester long.

This was a hard class, but it was worth it. I took it as a first year and had to work really, really hard, but it made me think like a college student. The TA, Nick, was great! I don't know how I would have gotten through without him. Megill is really interesting and fun to listen to in class.

Reading is difficult, but I thought the class was worthwhile.

This was the greatest class I ever took. It was a true scholastic experience.

Interesting material. Intimidating but certainly feasible if you follow Megill's instructions.

This course is incredibly difficult, but super informative. Don't take it if you're looking for an easy A, but absolutely take it if you want to learn a ton about a broad range of topics. Megill is brilliant.

Megill is brilliant. The material is extremely tough. Class was rewarding, as it will really challenges your thinking and your perspective on just about everything. Much much more philosophical than any other history class I have taken, so take this class only if you're ready for a new way of approaching history. Instead of looking at events, you'll be looking at different views of philosophy that emerged around the turn of the century.

Brilliant professor. He's easily the best I've had at UVA. He's available a ton and encourages everyone to come talk with him. The topic of the class and readings are all very fulfilling. I'm coming away from this class with many of my views changed and expanded upon. Really can't recommend this class enough.

I could have written an article about how amazing this class was for me. Professor Megill is so knowledgeable and brilliant that taking a single class from him (and studying studiously) has helped me to learn so much more as compared to other classes: some of the most provocative and almost life-changing (especially Nietzsche, IMO) ideas in modern history are brought up and discussed in depth (through several very intelligent conceptualizations he offers). Expect to work very diligently but this has been the most intellectually fulfilling class at U.Va. that I've ever taken. He also helps you throughout the entire semester and grading is very fair if you do study. Highly recommended for anyone genuinely interested in philosophy, history of ideas, or liberal arts in general.

First of all, the professor is incendiary. He's bouncing off the wall, hair wild, espousing grand conjectures. To see a professor, PhD and all, jump as high as he can to reach some upper-level hanging fruit is terrific. It's subjective, he's the authority, there's little room to complain, but it's a thrill to engage with. But every so often, the feeling creeps up that Megill may be biting off more than he can chew. Perhaps its the inevitably too-short time, and usual discontinuities between lectures, (it's topical, there's no set structure to learning in this class as one would find in Calc II, Intro Bio, or even in some survey history classes) but he will fail to support some grand, world-defining idea that he tries to drag form Nietzsche or Freud.
Another note about the professor: it's entirely conceivable to go through the whole course and wind up learning more about [post]modernism by observing Megill than through listening to Megill. His office opens like a Michael Gondry/Darren Aronofsky film, cluttered stochastically, with probably 350 books and manuscripts rife with annotations. He may have four or five editions/translations of the same text, stretching from Plato to German volumes probably talking about avian ontologies or something. Course documents too, convey a layering upon layering. Through multiple iterations, Megill exhibits FULL use of formatting possible in the digital age. Emails can themselves be exercises in hermeneutics. But overall, a treat, and if nothing else, fascinating.
Readings were dense. Always dense. And if they weren't dense, they commanded levels of attention that made them denser. But every so often, everything just clicked, and some of the phenomena in the world beyond the texts were finally made legible by words on these pages. The class siphoned time from my others, which was a pain, but I think may have been necessary. To truly take this class is to handle not only the texts, but the assumptions and context the thinkers were in when they made their contributions. Megill provides ample resources on Collab to understand where people were coming from.
This course, in that inflated, reversible way that has occurred every semester here, has completely altered the way I approach science, politics, other people, and myself. I encountered Plato, Mill, and Marx last year, fully buying into rationality and reason. Reading Nietzsche felt like hurtling forth on a train when all the sudden Wile. E. Coyote detonates the track ahead of you. What used to feel safe, secure, and inevitably progressive now leads nowhere. If truly immersed in, this class will force revaluations, of a college degree, of political affiliations, of relationships, and it will definitely enhance bullshit-detecting capabilities. It's hard, it requires a lot of time, and it will drag if not kept up with. But Megill cares about the content, it can totally jackhammer into the bedrock of one's intellectual foundation. If nothing else, this class overviews intellectual history Enlightenment through the 1930s, and will increase the academic style and esotericity of a student five-fold. But it can be much more.