This class sounds really cool and interesting in theory, and it looks fairly easy. It is not easy, and Professor Gelvin (while very smart) is clearly out of touch with his students and even his own TAs. I wish I had not taken this class for my GPA's sake and to save myself some stress, but I still enjoyed some lectures and content. Interesting overall, but not worth it in my opinion. If you care less about your GPA, you may think it is worth it.

TLDR grading is super vague, lectures are hit-or-miss, and Prof. is smart but old, rude, and unhelpful. Let's break it down:

1) Grading: This is the worst part of this class. Gelvin has two take-home essays, and a final exam that is in-class and basically two back-to-back in class essays. The take home essays were each supposed to be 25% (or were they...I'll get to this, but I still don't really know) and the final was supposed to be 50%. For the final, he gave us the prompts ahead of time, which was nice. No discussion section so no attendence or participation points. These 3 things determine your grade - you could theoretically not attend a single class and still manage to get an alright grade by studying for the final and AI'ing the essays. A few people I know did this, and one even got a better grade than me. The take home essays each had weird prompts, but the final prompts were very applicable and interesting. But the thing is, every single one of the prompts connected to only a few lectures, so most of the lectures ended up being useless because they were never tested on. More on lectures below. In the last class, Gelvin said that he was aware that a lot of people AI'd the two take home essays, so he was going to make the final exam weighted more. He did not give any further elaboration, even when students asked about it. He never sent any clarification. We never even got feedback on our final exams. Just the grade on MyUCLA, accompanied days later by a rude email not to ask him about grades. This all left me with a sour taste in my mouth, especially because this class was the first A- I've ever gotten and lost me my 4.0. Not trying to brag or anything, but I think that says a fair amount about the difficulty of the class.

2) Lectures: Gelvin is a very old Professor, and as such, he lectures without slides or visual aids. Most classes, he put a pixelated map of Israel and Jordan up on the board and just started talking. As you would expect, this makes it hard to follow along and stay engaged. But I will give Gelvin some credit on the fact that he does present the material in a very unbiased manner, using the true facts to guide student opinions rather than biased opinions to guide skewed facts. That's important, especially given the topic of the course. Some lectures were very interesting and I learned a lot while staying engaged. And some lectures were horrible; Gelvin would go off on a tangent that had no relation to the course material and spend an entire class on it, and students walked away feeling as if they had just wasted their time. After the first one or two of these classes by week 3, most students stopped going. I'd say there were roughly 30-50 students out of 120 there on a given lecture day. I went to every lecture except for one, and it didn't matter at all, although I learned some cool random accessory facts to the bigger story. That's because the two essays and final focused only on content from a handful of lectures, maybe 5-10 total out of the 30+. The second essay didn't even include any lectures - it was on a random book of some dude visiting Palestine and comparing it to America. Confusing essay prompts, but the final was solid and fair. On Canvas, Gelvin provides basically nothing. He gives you a vocabulary list for each week with random terms that he says once in lecture and that never are tested, so that was unhelpful and pretty irrelevant. He also gives the syllabus and a guide to good writing (which is solid, but never is used in grading because the TAs grade). Canvas did not have a lot of resources for students to get help.

3) Professor (and TAs): Gelvin is very smart, historically-accomplished and well-versed on the topic. Yet, he is very old and out of touch with students, especially in the present day. That made him appear more and more rude, as the course progressed. He was also incredibly vague and gave snarky remarks to students who asked pretty basic questions (that he did not include in the syllabus). Basically, Gelvin left students in the dark and was very unhelpful. Even with students like me, who went to lecture, stayed after class to talk with him and went to his office hours often, he wasn't helpful, although he was a nice guy. It just seemed like he wasn't really all there, even though he clearly knows a lot about this topic. As for the TAs, there were two of them and since there was no discussion section, they were only there to grade our stuff. They did not provide a grading rubric and provided minimal feedback on each essay, which made me very confused about how to improve. I went to office hours and talked with the TA who graded my essay, and left more confused than before I went. They also never gave us our finals back. I got A- on both of the essays, but felt like my final responses were A level. I guess I'll never know what was wrong with them, along with how much the final was actually worth. It honestly felt like the TAs simply spun a wheel to determine our grades rather than taking the proper time to understand our arguments. A friend of mine, who completely AI'd his essay, got an A because it was easy to read for the TA. Long story short, Gelvin just talks in lecture while the TAs half-heartedly grade assignments and provide minimal feedback. Even though I got A- on (presumably) all 3 assignments, I have no idea why and how I could have improved them.

I wish I had not taken this class, but I still enjoyed some parts of it. It did cost me my 4.0 so I am quite biased, but there are worse classes out there. I'm just still so confused about why the Professor did not put more effort into clarifying basic things for his students, why the TAs graded how they did, and ultimately why I was not rewarded for going to class and engaging with the material. Take this review as you will with all the info, I feel as if I've been pretty thorough.

Dr. Gelvin is one of my favorite professors at UCLA. His lectures are very clear, relevant, and detailed. He's an experienced writer and academic and is just an interesting guy all around. Definitely go to his office hours if you can. The lectures follow pretty closely to the chapters in his book he assigns.. So, if you ever don't want to go to lecture, you can just read the chapter assigned that week and get the gist of what was discussed. I took this class in what ended up being a very relevant quarter, with the encampment and the drama that ensued after. It is my opinion that Dr. Gelvin offered a very well-researched, clear, and accurate analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict and ongoing war in Gaza, giving light to the various motivations and tactics of all parties involved. Regardless of where you stand on the issue, you should expect to have your beliefs or biases challenged and perspectives widened.

In terms of coursework, there were readings for every class, a midterm paper and a take-home final exam consisting of 2 4-5 page papers. If I remember correctly, the final was supposed to be in-person but was made take-home due to the encampment and police presence on campus.

Professor Gelvin is a bit of an ass but in an endearing way. He's a bit of an old curmudgeon but is very knowledgeable and made this class a joy to take. I'm sure strong supporters of Israel will be bothered by some of his opinions but I found him to be quite fair. He is particular in what he looks for in his papers but if you take notes in class and use the textbook (which is a literal transcript of the class), you should be fine. He is quite fond of using lists, sometimes quite exhaustively, but they will be very helpful on the essays. I highly recommend his class!

I have been a longtime follower of the Israel-Palestine conflict and its history. I've read several books on the topic and so I was eager to take this class. I took it knowing that the current war on Gaza was raging and in all the headlines. Nevertheless I had no idea how relevant it would be on campus with the massive student protests this past academic year. The encampment and its opposing pro-Israel display were both right in front of my classroom which felt like an extension of the course in an odd way. Despite the unprecedented times Professor Gelvin kept completely calm and actually largely avoided touching the issue. Rather we stayed focused on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict from 1881-Present day. We even discussed the current war on Gaza specifically as well as its background. I was shocked how well everything fit together. The lectures were extremely engaging, and I can't say enough good things about Professor Gelvin's style of teaching. It is accessible to newcomers to the subject, and longtime followers. My friends were relatively new to the Israel-Palestine conflict and left the quarter both saying it was their favorite class this Spring. I would agree. There were three five page papers in total, but initially there was supposed to be a fourth which was canceled because of the TA strike. The first paper was talking about the two societies in the 19th century before they came in contact with one another. Ashkenazi Jews in Europe and the indigenous Arab population of Ottoman Palestine. The second paper (which we didn't have) would have been based on a book called The Book of Gaza: A City in Short Fiction by Atef Abu Saif. The third and fourth papers were a take home final. The third was about the significance of the years 1917, 1948, 1967, and 1993. The fourth was about why the Oslo Accords did not resolve the conflict. Overall I would say this an excellent class that was also surprisingly funny. There were several times the whole class was laughing which is something you wouldn't expect from such a serious topic, but it's also a way of keeping people engaged using clever jokes which better illuminate concepts we are learning. I would highly recommend taking this class for anyone interested in the plight of the Palestinians, the intractability of the Israeli occupation, and true nature of the over a century old "Israel-Palestine conflict".

Professor Gelvin's class sums up the relevant history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, including both the events themselves and their significance. He has very succinct PowerPoint slides to complement his lectures. I think the grading for the class was based on two papers and the final, but the format of the second paper was an op-ed. Professor Gelvin's grading standards were incredibly clear, so as long as you follow those he grades pretty easy. He was also understanding of the riots/coronavirus situation and made the final entirely optional. Highly recommend this class, or any other offered by Gelvin.

Gelvin's lectures are hard to follow because he does not use slides and moves quickly from topic to topic, but because the lectures are based almost exactly on the textbook (that he wrote), it is not hard to catch up. Grades in the class are based solely on essays, two essays during the quarter and two essays for the take-home final.

Let me just start by saying, James Gelvin is a great Professor. His lectures are great solely because he has done extensive research in his field. If you are looking to gain more insight to the Israel-Palestine conflict then this is the class for you. I would say right now that he is biased (You'll figure that out quickly). In terms of course work he only required 2 take-home papers, and a final. His standards for grading the papers are tougher than your average class. His TA's were tougher on grading, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's good to understand that writing is a major part, if you wish to succeed in this class. Gelvin is a funny guy, always slipping a joke or 10 in his lectures. He is a good guy (take that with a grain of salt) he likes to "torment" (I say that in a fun/friendly sort of way) his undergrad students with hard questions that take thorough research from the books he provides. I'd say, mainly because he wants them to learn his book/readings, literally you'll know the in's and out's of his textbook by the end of the course. Like I said it's a great class, Gelvin is an engaging teacher, does require good writing skills, and willingness to put in the effort and read the book. If you do, you'll do fine in his class.

Professor Gelvin is highly arrogant and makes no apologies for it. His lectures are often random and jump around a lot. Fortunately, his lectures follow his book closely so I stopped going to class after week 1. My first paper got a bad score even though I got 2 friends to peer review, 1 writing center reviewer, and 1 TA review. He commented that I did not follow the sources well, but I believe it was because I did not use his own opinions enough. My second paper, I amped up the bullshit and quoted extensively from his own book and the one lecture that I attended and did better. I wish Gelvin was as organized as his book, which was a great source on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The final was not that hard. 5 essay topics may sound scary, but they're all topics that his book discussed in great lengths. Also, quote from the articles he assigned and you'll get a good final grade. Overall, the pros of taking this class are Gelvin's book, assigned articles, and doable final. Cons: unorganized lectures, difficult to hear him if you're not sitting in the front half of class, his arrogance, occasional remarks of an ex wife and some other small unprofessional actions.

This class is super interesting and easy to follow if you go to lecture. Recommendations: sit in the front because he doesn't use a microphone. Record the lectures because he goes really fast and when it comes to the final it will be very helpful to listen to his points again. Make a group because if you miss a day you will need the notes. His book mirrors his lectures and is a great resource so read it! This class was funny, fun and totally worth it.

This guy is a genius, he is really smart, and an organized lecturer whom practically presents an outline of what he wants you to know. You have two papers, and one final (for which we got to vote on for an in class or take home final). He is a funny guy and he gives off an assholish persona which makes him that much funnier, seriously take him you won't regret it!