The Beautiful: Dartmouth's Best ProfsJohn Rassias Rassias is perhaps Dartmouth's most famous professor.His innovative theories on the teaching of foreign languages led to Dartmouth's LSA programs, drill sessions, and language lab.His teaching style verges on the outrageous. In class, he dresses up as Montesquieu, throws raw meat around, breaks eggs on students? heads, and rips his shirt off?all in the line ofteaching.Rassias? instruction is something no Dartmouth student should miss.
An engaging lecturer, Professor Saccio is Dartmouth's premier Shakespeare scholar.He teaches a great course on Modern British Drama as well.Saccio truly loves the material, and this is readily apparent in class.His flair for the dramatic manifests itself in his teaching style?this is a man who used to wear a cape around Hanover.Saccio's lectures are even sold nationwide on audiocassettes for a hefty sum; you may have seen advertisements for them in assorted magazines.His comments on students? papers are especially helpful.
A thoroughly old-school professor: No caps for gentlemen, no snacks.Though he suffers fools poorly, Professor Bradley will take you into the West's foundational texts as well as anyone.Bradley tells students that he hopes the works of Homer, Ovid, Vergil, and Appolonius will become ?good friends? who will stay with them for a long time.He relates stories about the old days of Dartmouth: Students huddling into Dartmouth Hall to listen to football games on the radio and guzzling beer on the Green while building the Winter Carnival snow sculptures (that's why they were once bigger and better; students had an incentive to stay outside). Save the nonsense for another class.
Professor Lagomarsino is not afraid to buck the trend of political correctness and conventional wisdom.For example, he teaches that the Inquisition was more just than most judicial procedures of its time.
Professor Benor takes the time and risk to question deeply held beliefs and assumptions about his very own discipline.In Religion 21, he asks, ?Can significant distinctions be drawn between religious and magical ritual? Do magic and religion thrive in opposition to the science of their time or in congruence with it?? The course suggests ?a general theory of conditions under which religion tends to be or tends not to be magical.? And best of all, students are invited to challenge his theory.Benor is better known for his Judaism classes.He's an encyclopedia of classical, medieval, and modern Judaism, and his lectures on the rabbinic revolution and mysticism are masterful.
After the anti-WTO protests in Seattle, Irwin took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to defend WTO trade policies and criticize President Clinton for ?caving in to pressure from labor interests.? Irwin currently serves on the advisory board of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies, and his advocacy of free trade has included work for President Reagan and President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers and a research position at the American Enterprise Institute.A paperback edition of his widely acclaimed Free Trade Under Fire will be published by Princeton University Press in October.
Even if you can't fit a class with Professor Tatum into your schedule, The Mourner's Song: War and Remembrance from the 'Iliad' to Vietnam?published earlier this year by the University of Chicago Press?is a must-read.Tatum is an expert on Apuleius, and the popular summer-term class ?Classics 4: Classical Mythology? is excellent in that it surveys myth in the context of great literature; such courses at lesser schools often comprise of rote memorization of gods merely to be regurgitated on multiple-choice exams.Tatum uses Greek call-and-response to keep his classes awake, attentive and involved.
In a demanding subject such as computer science, teaching skills and accessibility are in high demand. Aslam's lectures make difficult concepts less cumbersome, and the long hours spent with his door open make his courses in high demand. An expert on cyptography, he is an eloquent critic of government control of private computers.
A lecture by this man consists of serious, learned literary criticism leavened with all manners of asides, anecdotes, and aphorisms: in short, a virtuoso performance every time.Watch him rattle off lines from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales ?in perfect Middle English?while discussing Eliot's ?Waste Land.?Hear about Robert Frost and Walt Whitman at Dartmouth (and what Kate Sanborn, of Sanborn Library fame, thought of the Good, Gray Poet).Stop by and say hello; you can't miss him: he's the bald black man with a white beard smoking cigarettes outside of Sanborn.Just don't ask him about either Edgar Allan Poe or George W.Bush.
One of the up-and-comers in the department, and a Dartmouth alumnus to boot, Professor Christesen is the most popular adviser to classics majors. And his lectures provide compelling evidence for the importance of classics; he has a firm grasp on the value of understanding of Western Civilization's development.Christesen is a wise choice for beginning or continuing your study of classics.
A gifted and witty lecturer, Professor Koop teaches modern European history and the history of the American health care system.His best class is probably ?History 53: Europe in the Twentieth Century,? a magisterial survey of the two World Wars and the Cold War, fascism, nationalism, and Communism, Hitler, Lenin, and Stalin: events, ideologies, and people that still impact our lives today.Koop conceals his political beliefs so well, that anyone who can uncover them after ten weeks of class deserves a special award.
Professor Calloway says that he is not a student of Indian history; rather, he studies American history with Indians in it.A motivated lecturer and discussion-leader, Calloway is also a fairly prolific author, having written several works on early American history and the Abenaki Indians.Calloway is always prepared for class and cognizant of where he is and where he is going with his lectures.
Professor Shewmaker's ?History 24: U.S.Foreign Relations to 1865? is not a course to overlook.The reading is onerous, and Shewmaker is a demanding discussion leader and a tough grader.But his lectures are so spirited that some students say he knew Daniel Webster personally.
Unlike many of her colleagues in the English department, Professor Will provides a savvy, critical analysis of postmodern literature without dwelling on self-aggrandizing literary theory.
Whelan is a professor who presents a balanced and sound view of Soviet history.She gives solid, precisely ordered lectures and always has an anecdote or two to spruce up an otherwise dolorous subject.Her classes on Muscovite Russia are also worth note.
Professor Rutter's Classical Archaeology courses are challenging, and his passion for classical studies is invigorating.His classrooms are lively, yet serious, and he encourages group activities as well as independent thinking.
Professor Simons is the department's resident medievalist, a man quietly passionate about a misunderstood but essetial period in Western history.Among the many things he does well include writing his lecture outlines on the board, assigning good and even great books in class (Augustine's Confessions, Huizinga's Waning of the Middle Ages, amongothers), effectively moderating discussions, and being helpful and patient with his students during office hours.
Eickelman's readings are carefully chosen, and classroom discussion borders on genius.Professor Eickelman squeezes the best work from his students; given the depth and breadth of material he covers, asking any less would be a waste of his and students? time.
Professor Mastanduno's remarkable ability to present both sides of any issue is particularly rare and worthwhile.The students who line up outside his office to discuss foreign policy are a testament to his appeal.
Professor Whaley holds joint positions in two departments: Classics and Linguistics, where he serves as chair.He is serious about his subject matter, but he does not lack enthusiasm.Whaley is very approachable and eager to help students. |
Article ToolsRelated Articles· Fitz and Schul Defeat Sobriety and Bad Cinema · Fitz and Schul Defeat Sobriety and Bad Cinema: The Story of F. Scott Fitzgerald at Winter Carnival · Wright to Step Down in June 2009 · Winter Carnival: The History
Advertisement  Advertisement |
|
|
Copyright © 1996-2008 The Dartmouth Review |
||