Prof. Panagia is perhaps one of the most engaging and interesting lower-div Poli Sci professors. His lectures are informative but can sometimes feel like you're being inundated with too much info at once. Still, this class is very worthwhile as it creates the foundation of knowledge of which the rest of the major is built upon. There is no final or midterm for the class- your grade is made up of four 1200 word essays and participation, each counting for 20% of your grade. The essays can seem deceptively difficult at first glance, but take the time to talk to your TA in discussion or office hours about it.

Great professor. Challenging but rewarding class.

Selling ALL reading materials. Message me at (818) 620-6800 for more info!

Selling these books for the class, all the editions Panagia asks for (which can be hard to find), all in great condition, and cheaper than anywhere online!
EMAIL ME AT SEEYAVS@AOL.COM
-Nietzsche on Truth and Untruth
-Karl Marx Capital Volume I
-The Basic Works of Aristotle
-Rousseau: Discourses and other early political writings
-Hobbes: Leviathan
-Martin Luther Selections From His Writings (Dillenberger)
-Freud The Uncanny
-The Communist Manifesto (Hobsbawm Modern Edition)
-Basic Writings of Nietzsche

Absolutely a great class and great professor. Highly recommend going to class and paying attention. Get to know your TA and find out what he/she expects.

I took this class the first quarter of my freshman year and I wish I had't. The class its self is not too difficult. Your entire grade is made up of 4 essays and 5 pop-quizzes in section. As long as you do some of the reading you should be fine. As for the TA you choose DO NOT GET NAVEED!!!! He was sooooo unhelpful and ridiculously strict on grading. If you get him as your TA try to switch. Also if you do not like philosophy this is not the class for you.

Selling the books he requires for class email me if interested:
getaholdofbrie@gmail.com

I'm a senior and this class was hands-down my worst experience at UCLA. My TA Naveed was absolutely the most unreasonable grader and the most useless TA. Panagia DOES NOT normalize grades which is so unfair because every other TA was so much easier than Naveed. It's only fair to normalize grades in a class where 80% of the grade is super arbitrarily graded essays. Ignore the good reviews from quarters prior to Fall 2016 because he completely changed his grading scheme. Do yourself a huge favor and don't take this class

The lectures and professor were fine, easy to understand, and slightly interesting. I took it as a GE and it seemed pretty easy until I got my essays back. If you decide to take this class DO NOT GET NAVEED. If you show up to discussion and you have Naveed switch as soon as possible or find another poli sci elective to take because the highest grade he gives on essays is a B (if he's in a good mood, max, A-). Completely unfair class if you have him, everyone else gets A- A-'s and Panagia does not normalize or curve.

Professor Panagia was an extremely helpful and interesting professor, who had a variety of ideas to contribute to the class. Your grade is based off of only four essay assignments and participation, so you have to be good at writing papers (max word count was 1000 though, so nothing bad). I went to office hours the first week, and my TA's office hours once, and got an A- in the course, however I know people who went more often who did better, so I would take advantage of the opportunity. My TA wasn't the most helpful, but overall I didn't find the course too challenging. A couple of warnings-
The professor absolutely truly does NOT lecture on the essay assignments. That is 100% true. You have to go to lectures because you want to learn more about the philosophers and are genuinely interested in the subject, because ultimately it will not help you write your paper.
I did not find this course particularly challenging, but that is because I have studied philosophy over four times in the past two years. If you have never taken philosophy before, it might be much harder for you to be able to interpret the works correctly AND apply it to politics without stumbling on one of the essays. Possibly dangerous, since each essay is 20% of your grade.
Overall, if you genuinely like the subject, the professor is humorous and brilliant when it comes to subject material, and I enjoyed the course immensely.

Overall, it was an interesting class and Panagia is an engaging lecturer. His lectures do not explicitly link back to the papers, so you need to do some research and thinking on your own to answer the prompts. This should've been an easy A, but my TA had ridiculous expectations for the papers compared to other TAs and the questions on his pop quizzes are unreasonable. I still cannot fathom why he thinks we need to memorize quotes or minor details from the texts in order to show that we understand the main contentions of the authors (which is all we really need to get out of the texts in order to write the papers). Do NOT get Naveed as your TA. He is not only unreasonable, but also unprofessional. I went to his office hours and he was so distraught from the presidential election results that he did not even attempt to properly address my questions. Complete waste of my time.

As PoliSci major, I enjoyed the class. The professor's an engaging lecturer, and he brings a lot of clarity to the readings, which can be tough to understand at times, especially what their relevance is to political science. The assignments consist of four papers, which have fairly challenging prompts, so it helps to go to lecture to really get the material. There are also some other small grades, like him randomly taking attendance once, a participation grade in discussion, and small pop quizzes in discussion which are easy to ace if you've done the reading. Anyway, I'd recommend taking the class if you have an interest the subject, as Panagia is a very capable professor, and the class has definitely increased my interest in political theory.