<p>Urban Politics is being taught by Shefter and Israel-Palestine is being taught by Brann. Unfortunately, their timeslots absolutely suck. Urban Politics is from 2:30-3:20 and Israel-Palestine is from 2:55-4:10. Thus, I can only take one.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I like to watch cable news on MSNBC every day from 3:00 to 4:00, so both of these timeslots bug me even more. But it's very slim pickings in the Government department outside of those two courses... I don't see anything else than interests me.</p>
<p>I can’t comment on the instructors. But the I-P conflict from an impartial instructor will be facinating. A good teacher will be able to whipsaw the student, back and forth with culture and custom and fact and fiction, from one side to the other until one understands the hopelessness of the situation. I hope you get a good teacher.</p>
<p>I took urban politics. It’s pretty boring, and Prof. S is pretty dull (although incredibly nice). It’s easy A, though.</p>
<p>I didn’t take IP conflict because Brann wasn’t teaching it my senior year, when I wanted to take it. It’s supposed to be great, though. I’d recommend IP conflict over urban.</p>
<p>Wait, seriously, Urban Politics is an easy ‘A’? I imagined it would be hard since Shefter is supposedly somewhat famous. What do you learn about?</p>
<p>I’ve heard Shefter is a conservative. While I’m open to other viewpoints, I’m a liberal, so I like professors like Katzenstein, Sanders, Levin, etc. Basically mostly everyone.</p>
<p>We talked about Mexicans Americans in city politics (read several chapters of one of the world’s most boring books on that topic), we talked about police work, we talked about the Democratic machine that used to run NYC, etc. I thought the class was boring because I’m much more interested in international relations than domestic politics, and I’m really uninterested in local and small-scale politics (which the class is all about). It was easy though. The exams were incredibly straight forward, and there was an extra credit optional essay that, if you did well on it, could allow you to bump your final grade up 2/3 of a letter grade (i.e., from a B+ to an A). Govt classes are subjectively graded though, so the class’ easiness depends on your TA, I guess. </p>
<p>Can’t really speak to Brann being boring, as I never had him, but I heard the opposite. </p>
<p>I’ve already taken 1817 and 3082. Social Movements in American Politics might be interesting except that it’s with Sanders, who is kind of quirky and a rambler. Slim pickings outside of that. I was hoping for Katzenstein’s Capitalism and Conflict class or his American Foreign Policy one. I guess he’s on sabbatical.</p>
<p>I think it’s a bit of both. My impression, based on guest lectures he’s given in government classes I took, is that he teaches a lot of history from a political science and theory perspective. His guest lectures were great and really thought-provoking.</p>
<p>Well, I guess it’s a must-take in that case. I think I’ll take both that and Israel-Palestine, and then Intermediate Macro and Financial Accounting. I was hoping to take Intro to Philosophy, but I guess that can wait.</p>