Need an UL English course? Harvard has one cheap!

[alexf.1990]

This course is kind of fascinating and annoying all at the same time.  The professor, Elisa New, is married to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.  This means that Professor New is incredibly well connected.  This actually impacts the course because she reads poetry with a who's who of centrist Democratic Party luminaries.  She read poetry with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, President Bill Clinton, VP Joe Biden, etc.  She also has clips with Greg Lemond, John Lithgow, Frank Gehry and many, many others.  Sometimes this is really annoying.  Elena Kagan was obviously not really into the poetry and was probably just chatting as a personal favor.  Some of it is really fascinating.  Bill Clinton really had some nice points about the poems and you could see why people really just loved the guy personally because you could probably talk to him about almost anything and it would be interesting.  I think that the Frank Gehry interview was the best because he just has this great practical way about him.  Almost none of these celebrity readings had anything to do with the course grade/assignments, so these can actually be kind of optional.  Also, it is kind of annoying that Professor New is basically showing off her Harvard network of friends, although this is also fascinating just to see how wealthy, well-connected people interact with each other.

The other half of the videos are historical in nature and provide context to the various poets.  These are very well-produced.  Professor New visits a bunch of locations at which Walt Whitman lived and worked.  I especially liked her visit to a print shop that worked the same way that Whitman's would have worked.  You really get to see Whitman as a real person.

I did not get a chance to participate much in the office hours/discussion, etc.  I want to do more of that in the next couple of classes because it would be really great to be able to make some connections.

I understand why some people really might not like this course, but for $200 it has a tremendous amount of value.

Thanks for this review. I don't have any practical need for these courses, but I might take them in the off chance I want to teach English at a CC in a few years. It sounds like it would be good prep work for the HES finance program I'll be starting next year.