SEAS 1: I have never read so much in my life. This guy requires you to do a TON of weekly readings (80-100 pages/week in pdf articles). We finished the entire textbook in like 3 weeks. There's also 2 papers that you have to do, one of which is an analysis of a novel (go figure). I've worked my ass off in this class and ended up with an A-. It seems like most students revert to a "pass or no pass" grading system halfway through the quarter. His exams aren't exactly easy either. There's a ton of fill ins, matching, and multiple choice questions and a couple essay questions at the end. What really pissed me off was the fact that he expects us to complete all of this in 50 minutes! If we had more time, I probably would have gotten an A in the class. Seriously, this guy is so inconsiderate and clueless about time. He also lectures really quickly to cram in as much material as he can so we'll be accountable for it on the exams.

My TA Dahlia was great though. She was really helpful and gave good exam reviews.

Took SEA 1 with Dutton. I thought it would be super easy according to the reviews I read, but I actually found the class to be challenging. There's a MT, Final, 2 essays (one is a book review) ~5-6 pages each, and reading each week. The textbook is just okay. I don't think anyone could have survived unless they read wikipedia to get some general information about SEA (which colonial powers took over each country, who the presidents are, what type of government they have, etc). I did not know anything about SEA previously so that could be why I found it more difficult. The MT and Final were not a breeze at all. I went to all the lectures, discussions, did the reading mostly and still thought they were hard. Some of the questions are very obscure. The short answer essay questions also are vague which makes answering them difficult (you don't know what to mention because there is not enough time to write all that you have learned down). You should definitely attend lecture since he had 2 extra credit quizzes during the quarter. The discussions were sort of helpful. I had Dahlia as a TA and she was helpful.
I would recommend it as a class since you learn a lot about SEA in general. It also fulfills a variety of GE's (like art) which is good.

I took SEAS 1 in the fall of 09 with Dutton and would definitely take him again. His lectures are very organized and most of the questions on his tests are very predictable. He gets most of his multiple choice questions for both his midterm and final from the lecture so attending lectures are crucial.His lectures highlight what he finds to be most important from the Owen txt he assigns so if you're short on time skipping Owen wouldn't be a bad idea. Other than that he does include a few questions from a few of the articles he puts online . The hard part is knowing which articles will be included in the test. In the end I got an A.