Fri 25 Apr 2008
It’s pre-registration time at Williams. What tutorials would you recommend for current students? My suggestions include:
ECON 357T(F) The Strange Economics of College (W) SCHAPIRO
ECON 371T(S) Economic Justice ZIMMERMAN
ENGL 343T(F) Whitman and Dickinson in Context (W) KENT
HIST 128T(S) Conquistadors in the New World (W) WOOD
HIST 487T(F) The Second World War: Origins, Course, Outcomes, and Meaning (W) WOOD
PHIL 350T(S) Beauty (W) WHITE
PSCI 323T(F) Henry Kissinger and the American Century (W) MCALLISTER
If you aren’t taking at least one tutorial a semester, you are cheating yourself out of an amazing experience.
Which tutorials would our readers recommend and why?
April 25th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
The tutorial experience is hugely dependent on the Professor. This belongs on any list of great tutorials:
PHIL 235T(F) Morality and Partiality: Loyalty, Friendship, Patriotism (W) MLADENOVIC
April 25th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
I’m a fan of Peter Just, so I’d go with his just for that. The american culture wars one could be good depending on your partner (that would be a great one for two students with opposite views!). Fictions of African American History could be fascinating if it looks at history/sociology of science (Herskovits vs. Frazier, Moynihan, Cox vs. the caste school)…in fact, I think I’m going to make a note to create a syllabus around that for when I teach.
it could also be a really interesting look at more public assumptions about race (the hypersexualized black man, etc.) or at actual fiction writing about blacks in america. very cool ideas.
I’d also point out math 101–descriptive analysis. An intro math tutorial? If I could go back to wiliams as a frosh or sophomore right now, I’d demand a spot in it!
I also know a friend (getting married to a fellow eph!) who took Willingham’s tutorial on non-profits and enjoyed it.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Anything with Professor Wood is bound to be utterly awesome, but I bet his tutorials are already vastly oversubscribed..
April 25th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Just for the record, I always preferred small seminars to tutorials. The issue is that for most tutorials you’re so busy cranking out a paper every other week that you never get to sink your teeth that deeply into a single topic or produce something that’s truly polished- or if you do so the time cost is often prohibitive.
April 25th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
I loved taking tutorials and a few very small courses that were tutorial-like. They really offer a unique chance to challenge yourself and get to work closely with a prof. Of course they are also the epitome of “uncomfortable learning,” because you are on the spot and unable to hide behind other students who may have done the reading more carefully!
Seems like most Ephblog readers (judging by the approx. 150 comments) would be interested in:
INTR 309T(F)/WGST 309T(F) Racial-Sexual Politics and Cultural Memory (W) JAMES
Having worked for her classes many times (my illustrious work-study job as a slide projectionist) I would think that Zirka Filipczka’s tutorial would be good. Her courses on Dutch art were always wonderful, even only being able to hear 60% of them over the humming projectors. I will always remember Prof. Filipczak for the day after a huge snowstorm where she was one of the few profs not to cancel class - she just skied down the mountain to class.
ARTH 300T(F) Rembrandt Tutorial: Case Studies of Individual Works and Controversial Issues (W) FILIPCZAK
And finally, a plug for anything to do with Alex Willingham, especially a tutorial. He knows so much and has lived so much relating to the civil rights and voting rights movements. Every conversation with him is a lesson in history and how to apply those lessons to today.
PSCI 331T(S)/AFR 331T(S) Non-Profit Organization and Community Change (W) WILLINGHAM
April 26th, 2008 at 7:42 am
If you’re interested in working in the non-profit world, I would definitely recommend Prof. Willingham’s tutorial. It’s a great lesson not only in social movement history, but also in the nuts and bolts workings of non-profits, like what role boards should/can play and the relationships of organizations to their communities and constituencies. I work in a non-profit now and there’s not a week where I don’t use some lesson that I learned in that class.
April 26th, 2008 at 8:15 am
“If you’re interested in working in the non-profit world”
In or with, I would imagine. Since it’s almost impossible not to have some involvement in the nonprofit world, it sounds like this would be a great course for almost anyone.
April 26th, 2008 at 11:20 am
History 487T was perhaps the best (and certainly the most interesting, rewarding, and demanding non-divIII) course that I took at Williams. Looking at the realities of WWII is a good antidote to many popular misconceptions (and conspiracy theories) about the war that are complete and utter bullshit: e.g., we knew about Pearl Harbor in advance and let it happen anyway so we could be drawn in; we could have and should have bombed the railroad tracks leading to the concentration camps; there was no need to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki/the A-bomb was different in kind, not just degree, than prior aerial attack techniques.
Professor Wood is a national treasure, combining a gentle manner with an insightful, razor-sharp intellect.
Any of the History of Science classes with Don Beaver are highly recommended as well, especially History of Technology. I signed up for that on a lark (in part because of how it fit into my schedule) and ended up loving every single minute of that class. Talk about informative!
April 26th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Another note about Prof. Wood: he picks an excellent reading list. Now, 9 months after graduating (I took his class in senior spring), I’ve read several more books by some of the authors he introduced to us, and have gone back to a couple of the longer books that I wasn’t able to appreciate fully in the limited time we had.
April 26th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I’d recommend both of the geosciences tutorials offered this year — galapagos field geology (johnson and karabinos) and the carbon cycle (stoll). I took a similar geo tutorial to the johnson/karabinos one, and johnson is a great tutorial professor. heather stoll’s carbon cycle tute is legitimately the best introduction to geochem and paleoclimatology that I got as an undergrad.
(also, as even-better advice to undergraduates, never take a two-tutorial semester. I graduated williams with, geez, I think 8 tutorials on my transcript. tutorial topics are often, I find, more interesting than the basic lecture format class topics, but can also be so all-consuming (especially if you do more than one at a time) that they really take away from your other classes.)
April 26th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Great topic!
I’d second Mr Kane’s recommendation of hopping in with Professor McAllister’s tutorial - I did George Kennan in a tutorial with him my senior year, and it prepared me to understand everything that has come since in the field of international politics. I can’t imagine the value of tackling Kissinger with that guy.
You’d have to have an interest in it, but could also recommend Pacelli’s “Mathematics and Politics” tutorial - took a class with her on that topic once, and it was amazing to learn the options and trade-offs you can mkae in devising a “fair” voting system - you will understand this topic better the rest of your life, and it arises in a surprisingly broad array of contexts.
Can also add a second to picking up a class with Alex “Easy A” Willingham. Just a tremendously knowledgeable, experienced, and kind man who is also very relaxed about work and handing out A’s - really a win/win all around.
Finally, it almost does not need to be said, but if you can sneak into anything where you can tap the mind of either Bob Bell (doing “poetry” this year) or Professor Wood (as noted above) in such an intimate setting, snatch the opportunity.