ANTHRO 139
Selected Topics in Cultural Anthropology
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Study of selected topics in cultural anthropology. Consult Schedule of Classes for topics and instructors. May be repeated for credit with topic change. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
2 of 4
AD
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Professor Garro is a very knowledgable scholar, but an absolutely terrible lecturer. Her lectures are mostly explanations of readings for that week, but her explanations were hard to follow due to her constant stuttering, lack of proper wording, and confusing use of quotes from readings. This accompanied with uninformative slides which often do not pertain to what she is saying, made listening to her feel more like a headache than a relief from understanding the class material. The lack of coherent structure in her lectures made it confusing to take lecture notes due to the frequent rubber banding between going back and going forward on content and concepts. As for the material itself, there's 1 to 3 readings of 6 to 30 pages required per week from her own work published in the early 2000s or from older medical anthropologists' publications from the 1970s to 1990s. The contents of the material were not too hard to follow, but most of them included complex themes and concepts were often confusing and needed further explanation are severely lacking, as previously stated. Lastly her attitude towards the class was supposedly very supportive and positive, according to the TA, but Garro's interaction with the class has mostly been absent or otherwise negative. In the earlier weeks of the class she used to ask questions but as the students answered her question, she would reply with an uninterested "Ok" until one student barely scratches the "right" answer which no one but her seemed to have been able to guess correctly. Other times, she would outright tell the student they are wrong or give a sarcastic answer of 'Is it?' while trying to speak over them without letting them finish their thought/answer. Unsurprisingly the students stopped participating in fear they would just be dismissed for attempting. Overall, I would not recommend Garro. Her class has been the most unenjoyable experience I've had in my 4 years in UCLA. The content I've consumed from this class seemed to just turn me further towards disgust and annoyance about a topic that initially interested me due to its premise of understanding cultures' approach to medicine. Garro's teaching seemed to have entirely dismissed the objective truths we know about biomedicine while exoticising the non-Western approaches to medicine.
Fall 2019 - Professor Garro is a very knowledgable scholar, but an absolutely terrible lecturer. Her lectures are mostly explanations of readings for that week, but her explanations were hard to follow due to her constant stuttering, lack of proper wording, and confusing use of quotes from readings. This accompanied with uninformative slides which often do not pertain to what she is saying, made listening to her feel more like a headache than a relief from understanding the class material. The lack of coherent structure in her lectures made it confusing to take lecture notes due to the frequent rubber banding between going back and going forward on content and concepts. As for the material itself, there's 1 to 3 readings of 6 to 30 pages required per week from her own work published in the early 2000s or from older medical anthropologists' publications from the 1970s to 1990s. The contents of the material were not too hard to follow, but most of them included complex themes and concepts were often confusing and needed further explanation are severely lacking, as previously stated. Lastly her attitude towards the class was supposedly very supportive and positive, according to the TA, but Garro's interaction with the class has mostly been absent or otherwise negative. In the earlier weeks of the class she used to ask questions but as the students answered her question, she would reply with an uninterested "Ok" until one student barely scratches the "right" answer which no one but her seemed to have been able to guess correctly. Other times, she would outright tell the student they are wrong or give a sarcastic answer of 'Is it?' while trying to speak over them without letting them finish their thought/answer. Unsurprisingly the students stopped participating in fear they would just be dismissed for attempting. Overall, I would not recommend Garro. Her class has been the most unenjoyable experience I've had in my 4 years in UCLA. The content I've consumed from this class seemed to just turn me further towards disgust and annoyance about a topic that initially interested me due to its premise of understanding cultures' approach to medicine. Garro's teaching seemed to have entirely dismissed the objective truths we know about biomedicine while exoticising the non-Western approaches to medicine.
AD
Most Helpful Review
I thought professor Gessler was one of the best professors I've ever had at UCLA. I took him for Anthro 137 and I did not know one thing about programming, but he was very patient with all of his students and every single student presented a project that was developed with Borland's C++ programing. His T.A., Dave, was phenomenal also. They were both extremely helpful and I asked them for a LOT of help. They were both willing to meet me outside of class or an hour before class or after. They were extremely helpful in making the computer programming easy. The class was very exciting and one of the things I admired most about prof. Gessler is he didn't have us spend a lot of money on a lot of different books. A lot of times he brought copies of reading material in to the class. He was very organized; I always knew what was expected of me ahead of time and he was ALWAYS available to help; during class and after class hours. I would highly recommend students take his class to get a breath of realism and a professor that is just a great down to earth kind of guy. He might even invite you to go hunting with him for meteorites; the guy really cares about his students and there are no tricks or surprises.
I thought professor Gessler was one of the best professors I've ever had at UCLA. I took him for Anthro 137 and I did not know one thing about programming, but he was very patient with all of his students and every single student presented a project that was developed with Borland's C++ programing. His T.A., Dave, was phenomenal also. They were both extremely helpful and I asked them for a LOT of help. They were both willing to meet me outside of class or an hour before class or after. They were extremely helpful in making the computer programming easy. The class was very exciting and one of the things I admired most about prof. Gessler is he didn't have us spend a lot of money on a lot of different books. A lot of times he brought copies of reading material in to the class. He was very organized; I always knew what was expected of me ahead of time and he was ALWAYS available to help; during class and after class hours. I would highly recommend students take his class to get a breath of realism and a professor that is just a great down to earth kind of guy. He might even invite you to go hunting with him for meteorites; the guy really cares about his students and there are no tricks or surprises.
2 of 4
