Professor
Joseph Dimuro
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - I would like to start by saying that Professor Dimuro is a really kind professor, and it's obvious that he puts a lot of effort into this class. I think he said he even helped design the Keywords in Theory courses. When I went for help, he really did try to help. That being said, this is not an easy class. You'll read a range of difficult texts from Marx to Raymond Williams and Mathew Arnold and even Pierre Bourdieu. You'll read complex sociology papers and journals and out of all the 50 pages of reading, you'll only need to understand one or two sociology based ideas and he will try and apply that to the idea of Culture and community. There's small responses due like 4 times in a quarter, two papers, and a final. Dimuro himself is softspoken and reads off of his notes for a good portion so sometimes it's hard to stay engaged, and alot of time time class passes by with sometimes meaningless over analyzation of the concepts we're learning. This class felt more sociology based than English based. I wouldn't recommend this class if you're looking for an easy A. I was thoroughly confused most of the quarter and was honestly surprised I got a B+. You do learn some cool concepts, and Dimuro is a nice guy.
Winter 2023 - I would like to start by saying that Professor Dimuro is a really kind professor, and it's obvious that he puts a lot of effort into this class. I think he said he even helped design the Keywords in Theory courses. When I went for help, he really did try to help. That being said, this is not an easy class. You'll read a range of difficult texts from Marx to Raymond Williams and Mathew Arnold and even Pierre Bourdieu. You'll read complex sociology papers and journals and out of all the 50 pages of reading, you'll only need to understand one or two sociology based ideas and he will try and apply that to the idea of Culture and community. There's small responses due like 4 times in a quarter, two papers, and a final. Dimuro himself is softspoken and reads off of his notes for a good portion so sometimes it's hard to stay engaged, and alot of time time class passes by with sometimes meaningless over analyzation of the concepts we're learning. This class felt more sociology based than English based. I wouldn't recommend this class if you're looking for an easy A. I was thoroughly confused most of the quarter and was honestly surprised I got a B+. You do learn some cool concepts, and Dimuro is a nice guy.
Most Helpful Review
I recently took this course with Professor Dimuro. It says English 134 but I was in his 139 course. I gave him a great review in teacher evals, but if I could, I'd retract that review. Perhaps it was pity for this professor- he was angry that nobody spoke up in class although most of us are attentive, and stormed out of the classroom saying we don't care about our futures. We are at UCLA for a reason. Although he appears nice, he doesn't really give a damn about his students, as seen through his actions. We didn't get our first essay graded until 9th week, when the second essay was due during finals week. I don't think it's feasible to plop down a prompt 9th week and have students to do well on their essays due 10th week when we have other finals, without receiving feedback. On top of that, he loves to ask multiple choice questions on his finals, which I find ridiculous. Unlike other English classes where even if there are specific questions, his questions are a bit too specific- based on ridiculous background information of the novel, not the foreground text itself. I understand the author's background is important for understanding the work, but it shouldn't be tested on extensively. He also grades horribly unfair on his final essay analysis- it's pretty much not based on your explanation but if you can I.D. the work. Unlike other classes, where there are distinct authors, and distinct texts, the class I took was all Henry James. He took some obscure quote from the preface which sound very similar and a quote from a novel and all Henry Jamesian protagonists, if you read enough of him, are essentially the same. They have the same thought processes and downfalls, and imagery is almost identical across all works. He added 15 points to everyone's final score because we did so poorly- when did a humanities class have a straight out curve, when most people get D's and F's on their finals?
I recently took this course with Professor Dimuro. It says English 134 but I was in his 139 course. I gave him a great review in teacher evals, but if I could, I'd retract that review. Perhaps it was pity for this professor- he was angry that nobody spoke up in class although most of us are attentive, and stormed out of the classroom saying we don't care about our futures. We are at UCLA for a reason. Although he appears nice, he doesn't really give a damn about his students, as seen through his actions. We didn't get our first essay graded until 9th week, when the second essay was due during finals week. I don't think it's feasible to plop down a prompt 9th week and have students to do well on their essays due 10th week when we have other finals, without receiving feedback. On top of that, he loves to ask multiple choice questions on his finals, which I find ridiculous. Unlike other English classes where even if there are specific questions, his questions are a bit too specific- based on ridiculous background information of the novel, not the foreground text itself. I understand the author's background is important for understanding the work, but it shouldn't be tested on extensively. He also grades horribly unfair on his final essay analysis- it's pretty much not based on your explanation but if you can I.D. the work. Unlike other classes, where there are distinct authors, and distinct texts, the class I took was all Henry James. He took some obscure quote from the preface which sound very similar and a quote from a novel and all Henry Jamesian protagonists, if you read enough of him, are essentially the same. They have the same thought processes and downfalls, and imagery is almost identical across all works. He added 15 points to everyone's final score because we did so poorly- when did a humanities class have a straight out curve, when most people get D's and F's on their finals?
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