HNRS 158
Justice and Moral Responsibility in Literature
Description: Seminar, three hours. Discussion of literature (drama and fiction) addressing themes of law, justice, government, and moral responsibility in public context. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Excellent Professor! RE: HNRS 158 This is my second class with Professor Lowenstein and I must say that I am incredibly impressed, yet again! (Previous class with him was HNRS 173). However, I warn you now though, you reap what you sow, so in other words, there is a STRONG emphasis on class participation or else the class will not be meaningful (or at least, from your perspective). In light of this, it’s not your typical class, if you just sit-back, remain quiet or wait to be called on or “raise your hand,” you’ll be sidestepped since the burden is squarely on the student to take the initiative to SPEAK UP. As you can imagine by now, I was active, so I loved this class. Professor Lowenstein fundamentally altered the manner in which I analyze literature in relation to justice, law, language, and society. I consider this class to be the hardest class to get an A+ (or even an A) in terms of writing, participating, and his expectations on students (and I’ve taken some hard classes!). What’s more, Professor Lowenstein utilizes the Socratic method so if you gave a frivolous or smart sounding BS answer, prepare yourself to elaborate deeply on your comments or be caught. If you consider yourself a thinker or someone that relishes a good debate match around such important topics as liberty, justice, law, society, and literature, then you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take HNRS 158 with Professor Lowenstein. Every moment of the class is filled with fascinating comments and debates from educated students as we analyze what role individuals, society, justice, religion, law, etcetera play in relation to the great set of literature that Professor Lowenstein selected. It’s because of these aforementioned reasons why our class almost always went over its allocated scheduled time. It’s true that the same 7 students always spoke up while the other 10 commented infrequently, but I disagree with the below commenter because everyone had an equal opportunity to share their thoughts to make the class better. But instead many opt-ed out to merely listen safely rather than enter the debate round. I blame this squarely on the quieter students (that were possibly intimated by the class environment or were shy, or for whatever other reason) so claims that the class was boring is only from your passive perspective; you can’t be passive for any of Lowenstein’s classes. It’s also true that as a student we get stressed out if we do not receive a grade on our paper or know our grade at moment in class. His grading isn’t traditional but he will give plenty of constructive criticisms on your paper like you’ve never encountered before! (All immensely valuable to become a good writer but no actual percentage grade.) As a matter of fact, only reviewing his comments in and of themselves have made me a significantly better writer. However, I disagree again with the commenter below about the severity of the lack of not having a grade on the essay because all you have to do is just ask him your grade. He goes beyond what you can imagine by helping every student in anyway possible and he is incredibly educated (his intelligence is sometimes scary!) but nevertheless, he is very approachable in or outside of class. Ultimately, I highly recommend HNRS 158 or any class by Professor Lowenstein.
Excellent Professor! RE: HNRS 158 This is my second class with Professor Lowenstein and I must say that I am incredibly impressed, yet again! (Previous class with him was HNRS 173). However, I warn you now though, you reap what you sow, so in other words, there is a STRONG emphasis on class participation or else the class will not be meaningful (or at least, from your perspective). In light of this, it’s not your typical class, if you just sit-back, remain quiet or wait to be called on or “raise your hand,” you’ll be sidestepped since the burden is squarely on the student to take the initiative to SPEAK UP. As you can imagine by now, I was active, so I loved this class. Professor Lowenstein fundamentally altered the manner in which I analyze literature in relation to justice, law, language, and society. I consider this class to be the hardest class to get an A+ (or even an A) in terms of writing, participating, and his expectations on students (and I’ve taken some hard classes!). What’s more, Professor Lowenstein utilizes the Socratic method so if you gave a frivolous or smart sounding BS answer, prepare yourself to elaborate deeply on your comments or be caught. If you consider yourself a thinker or someone that relishes a good debate match around such important topics as liberty, justice, law, society, and literature, then you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you don’t take HNRS 158 with Professor Lowenstein. Every moment of the class is filled with fascinating comments and debates from educated students as we analyze what role individuals, society, justice, religion, law, etcetera play in relation to the great set of literature that Professor Lowenstein selected. It’s because of these aforementioned reasons why our class almost always went over its allocated scheduled time. It’s true that the same 7 students always spoke up while the other 10 commented infrequently, but I disagree with the below commenter because everyone had an equal opportunity to share their thoughts to make the class better. But instead many opt-ed out to merely listen safely rather than enter the debate round. I blame this squarely on the quieter students (that were possibly intimated by the class environment or were shy, or for whatever other reason) so claims that the class was boring is only from your passive perspective; you can’t be passive for any of Lowenstein’s classes. It’s also true that as a student we get stressed out if we do not receive a grade on our paper or know our grade at moment in class. His grading isn’t traditional but he will give plenty of constructive criticisms on your paper like you’ve never encountered before! (All immensely valuable to become a good writer but no actual percentage grade.) As a matter of fact, only reviewing his comments in and of themselves have made me a significantly better writer. However, I disagree again with the commenter below about the severity of the lack of not having a grade on the essay because all you have to do is just ask him your grade. He goes beyond what you can imagine by helping every student in anyway possible and he is incredibly educated (his intelligence is sometimes scary!) but nevertheless, he is very approachable in or outside of class. Ultimately, I highly recommend HNRS 158 or any class by Professor Lowenstein.
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