HIUS 3753

Milov brings an amazing energy to class, and she clearly is an expert on 20th century American history, not to mention, she holds degrees from Harvard and Princeton. I feel like this was the most useful and applicable humanities class I've taken as I utilized my ability to analyze legal texts at my consulting internship when reading business law. Evaluating US history from the legal lens was also an extremely interesting framework and provided a lot of insight into the formation of the country as it stands today.

The readings are also very good and Milov is very adept at choosing engaging weekly reads that at most take 2 hours and that are also skimmable/ able to summarized via Chat GPT. I recommend doing the readings or at least getting familiarity because they can be assets on the midterm/ final essays when scrambling for sources.

Great class and even better professor. I took this course as a first year and found that APUSH provided adequate preparation for engaging with this higher level history course, so I wouldn't worry if you haven't taken that much history at the university. In all, this class is very doable with 15% discussion posts, 10% participation discussion, 15% Paper #1, 20% Paper 2, 20% Midterm, and 20% final. In terms of grading as well, you really won't get worse than an 88 on any assignment and if you complete the 4 points of extra credit, you can definitely lock up an A or minimum A- without having to be the greatest legal mind.

All in all, take this class whether your a history major, comm student, pre-law, or just someone who's interested at examining US history through a different lens.

Prof. Milov is funny, engaging, intelligent, and a great lecturer. For prelaws who haven't taken other law-related courses before, it's a great introduction to landmark Supreme Court cases and the deep historical context surrounding them. But for people who are already familiar with Civil Rights-era cases and forward (Brown, Griswold, Roe, etc.), the second half of the course gets repetitive and introduces little new information. Readings and exams are tough but fair, if you study a normal amount you should be able to meet the course load. I got by on the weekly discussion posts fine by just doing one or two of the readings and talking about a Supreme Court case I knew, and for (essay question) exams, a bare reference to all of the material a question asks about will get you an A. If you meet the course on its level, it works for you. Be careful, though - Milov gets just a little political at times when referencing current events, and I had to intentionally separate her commentary from positive statements about history.

History has always been my least favorite subject. But the topic of this class sounded interesting, so I picked it up on a whim and I couldn't be more wowed. Prof. Milov has a way of presenting dense information both eloquently and clearly. I often find myself typing every word she writes--and I'm usually a watch lectures at 2x and barely take notes kind of student, so that's super rare for me. Her explanations of the ramifications of various legal doctrines make them feel vividly current; but beyond listing the obvious consequences, she also digs up underlying themes and countervailing narratives that make the class feel really comprehensive and nuanced.

There are still a lot of things about history I hate, especially writing papers. As I was writing our first paper all I wanted to do was drop the class, but I just couldn't because I liked the lectures so much. Could not recommend her more.