This class was is of the most interesting and best classes I have taken at UCLA. We read three books, none of which were too difficult or dense, and wrote an essay about each one plus had two short exams. The essays weren't graded too harshly and the idea was more to engage with the books than to argue a thesis. Hollan is really thoughtful and also works as a psychoanalyst so his approach is pretty fascinating. I got a lot of out of his lectures, and the coursework, not only on an academic level but on a personal level. Some people complained that he does not use slides and does not carefully bullet point concepts in lecture, but it's not really that kind of class, it's more about being legitimately engaged with the materials. My only complaint is that the way he lists out the readings and weekly focuses on the syllabus is pretty confusing!

I really enjoyed this class! There were three books we had to read, the first I found a little harder to understand than the later two. After each book we wrote a paper that tied the book to smaller articles that were assigned. The grade breakdown was as follows:

Three short essay papers: 70%
Two short-in section exams: 20%
Discussion Participation: 10%

In addition to the papers we had "short in-section exams." In reality these were just defining terms from lecture and the articles, super easy!! The lectures were initially not recorded, but he decided to record them a few weeks in. Even though the lectures just consisted of him talking with no powerpoint I found them easy to follow and engaging! Overall, the class did have a good amount of reading, but I thought it was a super interesting and easy class!! Definitely take!!

My TA was awesome, but Hollan's lectures put me to sleep nearly every class.