HIEU 3352

This class was very good! Manuela is a very good teacher and really cares about her subject! She is willing to offer small extra credit opportunities and helps to make this course excellent. I would definitely recommend it.

Specific note: If you're an engineer looking to fulfill your STS 2xxx/3xxx requirement but aren't interested in the STS offerings, this class as a Second-Year Writing Requirement fulfillment will cover that STS req.

I went into this class hoping to walk away with a somewhat comprehensive understanding of "Modern German History," as the course title would suggest; unfortunately, Achilles falls far short. I think a more accurate description would be "an unabashedly liberal film study of socio-cultural themes in modern German history." Indeed, there isn't much "history" in this class to begin with. Achilles, whether in lecture or through readings, made little attempt to convey any sort of baseline understanding of the facts of whatever era/subject we happened to be studying. Instead, her modus operandi was to jump headlong into discussions of the personal/societal implications -- i.e., how it affected the "little man." As an example: for all the time we spent learning about squalid student protesters and Green Party backbenchers , there was no discussion of the broader geopolitical phenomena that defined the second half of the 20th century. I don't think the name "Reagan" was ever uttered; Gorbachev, maybe once. But you can be sure you'll spend inordinate amounts of time reading about Joschka Fischer. So the content was obviously lacking; logistically, things weren't any better. Achilles assigns an outrageous volume -- fifteen or so -- of movies to watch over the course of the semester, typically one per week in addition to the reading. From what I could tell, most students did not watch these pictures, rendering the excessive time spent on them in lecture and discussion pretty worthless and unproductive. Nothing against learning through film, but I never quite understood why it was such a hobbyhorse of hers. The work itself wasn't so demanding; I received As on both papers with fairly moderate effort, and a significant portion of the grade is derived from an ongoing "portfolio" project and participation. (Though I may have just been lucky; others said her grading of the papers was woefully inconsistent). The final, however, was a bit of a curveball. After implying the films would figure heavily on the exam, there was not one mention of them -- so lesson learned, there is literally no reason to watch the movies she assigns. I wasted a fair amount of time writing up summaries of each in preparation for the exam, only to find an odd combination of IDs, two timelines, and two essays that really didn't seem to capture the important course themes (but then again, she and I clearly disagree on what constitutes "important"). The TA was somewhat monotonous, and especially later on, didn't too interested in answering students' questions -- but I assume he won't be teaching this class again next semester. Bottom line: there are dozens of other engaging history classes at UVA that are well worth your while. This isn't one of them. If you must take it for scheduling reasons or otherwise, you'll probably do fine, but it won't be the most enjoyable or rewarding experience.

Prof Achilles chooses very good central themes for this survey course of modern German history. We mostly looked at state-building and nationalism. One of the coolest components of the course was watching German films. Achilles requires you to watch about ten German films, from propaganda to experimental pieces. This, along with two of our required readings, gave an in-depth, from-below perspective on history. All that being said, Achilles is just an OK lecturer. We did not cover many facts, which seemed odd for a survey course. The lectures were loosely structured, and we often spent the first 10-15 minutes of lecture reviewing the previous one. It was easy to get distracted. Two papers, totaling 40 percent of the final grade. No exams except for the final, which was only 20 (!) percent of the final grade. The rest was participation and a small project.

Work: One 8-page paper, one short group discussion presentation, and a final.
Review: Achilles focuses heavily on perception/sentiment rather than politics and economics. You will spend most of the time discussing the effects that events/policies had on culture and "feeling", rather than discussing these events in depth.

tends to repeat herself