HISA 2002

Take home midterm and final, lectures are really interesting and funny. Barnett is great.

Barnett is my favorite professor so far. I had a fabulous time in his class and was never bored. The material is interesting as are his tangents. He is very fair and it was nice to get to know him. It is a great class. It helps that the midterm and final were takehome and quite straightforward.

Professor Barnett knows just about everything about India and Central Asia. His knowledge will never cease to amaze you, but will quite often confuse you at the same time. There are a lot of names that will have no clue how to pronounce or simply repeat after hearing. Thankfully, Barnett lets you take both the midterm and the final as take-home exams, so you don't need to know your Abu Fasl from your Qutb Minar -- just read through your notes (and do the reading) as you take the exam.

Barnett himself is a great guy. A dynamic lecturer even if the material is on the dry side, he'll always be happy to explain himself and is very understanding. His deadpan sense of humor is a riot. His conclusions are often that everyone was religiously tolerant (and basically held hands throughout Medieval Indian history and sang kumbayah) but he offers a somewhat revisionist and innovative look at the period. I recommend this class because of Barnett himself and because, at the very least, you'll learn about a region and period almost no one else really ever studies.

I just want to say that even though Professor Barnett is a great person,a great lecturer with amazing views, I was very disappointed in the grading scale. I did all the readings and took notes,literally all of them etc and ended up with a B+ whereas my other friends who would never talk in discussions and did not do even one reading ended up with a B+ too, so in conclusion if you take the class, do not work hard, do not do the readings and you will end up with perfectly nice grades because readings do not matter!

The class is really difficult to follow and take notes in, because the names of everything are all so similar to each other and so strange. Professor Barnett makes the class really interesting, though, and tries to connect to his students and keep their attention. I would take this class again just because of him. The tests are also all take home, so if you just do the readings for the test you will be fine.
Definitely take this class if you need a history class.

Like a lot of people, I took this class because other people said it was an easy A class. However, I did not find it to be easy at all. The only thing "easy" about it is that both the midterm and the final are take-home, even though it doesn't say so on the syllabus. First of all, his lectures were extremely disorganized and extremely difficult to follow and take notes in. But the good news is that his lectures are extremely useless for the exams. The readings are really dry and boring but the good news is that they are also pretty useless on the exams. They are only slightly useful for the discussions. But most of the discussions, I just summarize what other people said and got full credit for the discussion, which I highly recommend you try to get because it would be a grade booster. In addition to the exams, there is a map exercise that is optional. Honestly, I wish I had to choose to do the map exercise. The map is actually graded harshly. I got a lot of points taken off because my cities were a centimeter away from where they should be. Overall, I found Google to be the most useful for the midterm and the final and would not recommend this class if you are looking for an easy A. Only take it if you are genuinely interested in Indian history.

Thought it would be an easy A but the final was extremely tricky, even though it was take home. Be careful about thinking about this class as an easy A.

I personally loved this class, but can recognize how it would be unenjoyable if you are not really into history. The content can get dense but I found it all very interesting as a history major. Your grade consists of a take-home midterm and take-home final each worth 50% of your grade, which is more intimidating than it seems at first. You do have the option of doing an extra 10 page paper or 10 minute presentation in class for 30% of your grade, reducing the two take-homes to 35% if you really mess up the mid-term. As others have said, his lectures can be tough to follow, so you really need to go to class and be attentive. I managed to get an A- by cherry-picking the readings I needed to do once I had the exams rather than doing them when I was supposed to on the syllabus, however this made taking these exams much more stressful and time-consuming. It's by no means an easy A, but if you go to class and read attentively it is definitely possible.

Richard Barnette is a great professor! He's interesting and well spoken and rather amusing. He often goes off on random tangents, but they are usually pretty interesting. The class is set up with two take-home test: midterm and final, of 10 MC questions and a 5 page essay. There are weekly readings, but they aren't truly necessary. I went to all the classes, and rarely did any readings and got a B+. I probably would have gotten a better grade if I had done the readings, and it would have made the midterms easier but you don't HAVE to do them. I took the class because I knew nothing about the subject, and I was looking for a low stress history class for my requirements. This was perfect- besides the midterm and final which were a little stressful but only took a day each compared to a full semester of stressing.

While Professor Barnett truly understands the subject and his sense of humor is certainly entertaining, I would not recommend this course to anyone who does not have an interest in history, particularly South Asian history. The readings were incredibly dense and dry, the material was rather difficult to follow, and while the midterm and final were both open note, open book, the questions were rather confusing and difficult. He is very particular about essay responses as well, which is something to keep in mind if you do take this course. If you enjoy South Asian history you will enjoy this course, but if you do not like history in general, I would avoid taking it.