Professor Parasher is genuinely one of the BEST professors I have taken at UCLA. He deserves the best possible praise and I can't recommend him enough. I would take another class with him in a heartbeat. His lectures are so engaging, often funny, and very clear. You can go to class without having fully understood the reading and you will understand so much more from lecture. He also loves and encourages student participation in lectures, and asks open-ended questions at multiple points in his lectures.

On top of that, Professor Parasher cares deeply about his students and is extremely kind. He stays after every single lecture to answer the line of student's questions and will never leave until everyone's questions are answered. He heavily encourages students to come to office hours on a weekly basis, and is very flexible with scheduling office hours. Even when his office hours sign-up did not align with my schedule or filled up, he was very open to rescheduling office hours, and even meeting with me twice a week to discuss the week's readings. Discussing readings in office hours with Professor Parasher is illuminating; he is extremely smart and articulates himself very clearly that I would walk out of office hours every week with a much stronger grasp on the thinkers' arguments. I highly recommend going to office hours on a regular basis and conversing with him! Totally changed my experience in the class and made me look forward to coming to every lecture.

This class was also super interesting. I came into the class thinking I wouldn't really care much for the material, since it's more contemporary and I don't know much about contemporary theory, but all of the thinkers chosen are very interesting. This class covers Weber, Luxemberg, Gandhi, Schmitt, Arendt, Hayek, Fanon and Berlin. There are two essays each about 1,000 words, and your grade is more dependent on your TA because the TAs vary in grading rubrics. My TA Tomi was great, I think just a tad strict on the grading, but overall a wonderful TA . He made discussion sections interesting and also encouraged student participation.

Anyways, I overall can't recommend Prof. Parasher enough!! He is a wonderful example of how professors should teach and I'm surprised he doesn't have higher reviews. Wish I could take him every quarter!

I think Dr. P is a generally good professor, his lectures are interesting and engaging, I think he assigns A LOT of dense reading, but he is honestly not very helpful or nice. He also talks so fast and it takes a lot of mental energy to keep up with his lectures. I more have an issue with TA Josey Tom, DO NOT TAKE THIS TA. He is mean and horrible, and not approachable AT ALL. I have his 8am discussion and he is honestly so horrible when its obvious its early on a friday and everyone is tired etc, he is just berating and gets very condescending when no one answers his questions, even if you answer right he doesn’t seem to care and then will just go on with his own idea of the right answer. Both TA and prof just aren’t approachable on a level of understanding on a person to person level and almost have a coldness to them.

Professor Parasher is such a nice guy, he's one of my first poc poli sci professors. I really enjoyed his class. This class consists of readings throughout the course, but he will always go into detail about the readings during lecture. We are graded on a midterm essay and a final essay, along with mandatory discussions. you choose one reading or text and write your essay this is for both essays, did I mention 4 pages double spaced. Literally a G! In discussion, our TA would put us in groups and assign us one question and that is your participation. Even though he doesn't know me, TA Spencer is so sweet and nice! I've had him for other classes and truly wish he was TA-ing my other classes.

Professor Parasher is one of the best professors I've had at UCLA. The class readings were manageable and extremely interesting. That being said, you have to read a different book every week, and it's in your interest to complete them if you want to excel on the essays. When I took the class, we read Carl Schmidt, Hayek, Arendt, Rosa Luxemburg, Gandhi, Fanon and a few others. Professor Parasher's office hours were tremendously helpful for improving my understanding of the class readings. I highly recommend going to office hours because the professor is a great conversationalist and is extremely knowledgeable about political theory. Professor Parasher's lectures are not only engaging, but also insightful. I found the lecture slides and notes very useful when writing my essays. Grades are based on two 5-6 page essay assignments for the entire quarter on the prompt of your choosing. Overall, the class was pretty chill, and I would definitely take another class with Professor Parasher. I genuinely enjoyed the course content and discussing political theory with the professor every Tuesday during office hours.