Prof Yan drops major truth bombs in this class. He has lived such a fascinating life and genuinely cares about making sure you get something out of the class.

Tests are made of multiple choice and short essays. Study textbook definitions for MC and the slides for short essays.

Highly recommend! This class has changed how I see myself and the world. And the tests are not too bad. One day Prof Yan showed up to lecture and just cancelled the essay! What a legend!

Professor Yan has a crazy backstory and often incorporates interesting examples in lecture, but also lecture isn't really necessary. Just find key terms from each unit and study them for the midterm and final. Akua as a TA was amazing. Interesting class if you look for it, but it could be boring, depending on who you are.

There is one midterm and a final, a 5 page paper, and weekly reading responses for this class. The midterm and final were heavily based on the key terms from the book so if you study those and the main topics talked about you should be fine. The paper was graded pretty easily ( I believe the average was an 89%). The lectures were somewhat difficult to follow, but as long as you understand the big ideas and themes you should be okay.

Professor Yan is a nice man, but his lectures are very boring and consist of him going off on tangents. He spends a lot of time talking about each slide, so much that he was behind schedule since he continued his lectures going into the following week. There were reading responses due for weeks 2-6, which I found pretty pointless. The midterm and final weren't bad, they consisted of multiple choice and a few short-response questions. Most of the content on the exams came from lecture and the readings from the textbook; the supplementary articles are practically worthless. There was also a 5 page ethnographic observation paper that required us to go do fieldwork at either Wooden, Trader Joe's, or the farmer's market. Overall, this class was okay and definitely requires some effort to do well.