Professor
Ali Behdad
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2017 - Lectures aren't mandatory, but they are helpful background content for writing the essays. Most of the book is discussed in discussion, so reading is mandatory if you want to keep up with discussion and plan out the essays. Usually the TA's were the ones to help you structure and write the essays. Pretty easy class for the writing II requirement.
Winter 2017 - Lectures aren't mandatory, but they are helpful background content for writing the essays. Most of the book is discussed in discussion, so reading is mandatory if you want to keep up with discussion and plan out the essays. Usually the TA's were the ones to help you structure and write the essays. Pretty easy class for the writing II requirement.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - This is a review for Eng 128: Postcolonial and Transnational Theory. The course breakdown was: 10% class participation 10% participation in a "Fish Bowl" discussion 20% annotated bibliography (2 pages, graded on completion) 60% 2 papers (4-6 pages) In addition, we brought in (ungraded) abstracts for our papers about a week before they were due Behdad is very understanding, and as you can probably tell, a lot of the class was graded on effort/completion. The grading of the papers was done by a TA who we didn't see except for one guest lecture, but he was very fair and provided helpful comments. My favorite parts of the class were reading the novels ("A Grain of Wheat" and "Abeng") and watching the film "The Battle of Algiers." In hindsight, I think a class on postcolonial theory should be made a mandatory part of the college curriculum. It helps us understand how absolutely crippling colonialism is to a country's people - even when the colonial force officially withdraws, it doesn't do it before completely destroying the country's natural resources and morale, and it never really stops kicking it even when it's down. Unfortunately, even with all of the pros listed above, I still found the class pretty dull. I took it to fulfill the critical theory requirement for English departmental honors (for creative writing, which should tell you how much I enjoyed theory going in), and I found most of the theoretical essays dense and confusing. Behdad also went through quite a few slides every lecture, so I was copying pages of notes every day with the only reprieve being the fishbowl (which I ironically started looking forward to just to break the monotony). I did find parts of the class interesting, but I REALLY had to see the forest for the trees.
Spring 2023 - This is a review for Eng 128: Postcolonial and Transnational Theory. The course breakdown was: 10% class participation 10% participation in a "Fish Bowl" discussion 20% annotated bibliography (2 pages, graded on completion) 60% 2 papers (4-6 pages) In addition, we brought in (ungraded) abstracts for our papers about a week before they were due Behdad is very understanding, and as you can probably tell, a lot of the class was graded on effort/completion. The grading of the papers was done by a TA who we didn't see except for one guest lecture, but he was very fair and provided helpful comments. My favorite parts of the class were reading the novels ("A Grain of Wheat" and "Abeng") and watching the film "The Battle of Algiers." In hindsight, I think a class on postcolonial theory should be made a mandatory part of the college curriculum. It helps us understand how absolutely crippling colonialism is to a country's people - even when the colonial force officially withdraws, it doesn't do it before completely destroying the country's natural resources and morale, and it never really stops kicking it even when it's down. Unfortunately, even with all of the pros listed above, I still found the class pretty dull. I took it to fulfill the critical theory requirement for English departmental honors (for creative writing, which should tell you how much I enjoyed theory going in), and I found most of the theoretical essays dense and confusing. Behdad also went through quite a few slides every lecture, so I was copying pages of notes every day with the only reprieve being the fishbowl (which I ironically started looking forward to just to break the monotony). I did find parts of the class interesting, but I REALLY had to see the forest for the trees.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - This class was very boring. Every session consisted of sitting there and watching the professor read off of a slideshow, which was always at least 70% quotes from whatever book we had to read that week. The works we read were interesting, but I did not feel like I gained any further understanding of them during the lectures. This class is also based on discussion, so there were a lot of pauses and awkward silences when the professor asked a question and no one would answer. There are three written assignments (2 short papers and an annotated bibliography that's graded on completion) and a "fishbowl" presentation where you group up with a couple of people and talk about an assigned book in front of the class. These are the only times when I felt like I was conscious. Oh, and if you miss a class, you have to write a three-page paper to make up for it.
Winter 2024 - This class was very boring. Every session consisted of sitting there and watching the professor read off of a slideshow, which was always at least 70% quotes from whatever book we had to read that week. The works we read were interesting, but I did not feel like I gained any further understanding of them during the lectures. This class is also based on discussion, so there were a lot of pauses and awkward silences when the professor asked a question and no one would answer. There are three written assignments (2 short papers and an annotated bibliography that's graded on completion) and a "fishbowl" presentation where you group up with a couple of people and talk about an assigned book in front of the class. These are the only times when I felt like I was conscious. Oh, and if you miss a class, you have to write a three-page paper to make up for it.
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