This class format is weekly prerecorded lecture videos from Professor Cooney, which I believe were all recorded a couple years ago. Then there are weekly TA videos outlining research related topics- these were not that helpful honestly but they are required. Then there are 4 weekly discussion board posts of 250 words each. Those definitely take a sizable chunk of time and are a good chance to engage with other students and see opinions. There are also weekly readings. Some were pretty hefty, but honestly you don't have to read every word. As long as you get the overarching concepts, you are fine.

There are 3 assignments: One standard short summary/analysis essay, one annotated bibliography, and then the final research paper. As long as you start early enough, you should be totally fine with all of them.

The professor also hosts 2 live events, but other than that she is not involved at all in the course. It is the TA who is guiding you through everything pretty much.

Course material wise- as others have said, Professor Cooney spends the most time on Egypt and I felt like I left the class with a bit of Ancient Egypt superiority view in terms of Women in power. Just be careful with not taking her bias to heart. Other than that, the videos were usually interesting, but watching them on 2x speed is the best way to go.

I felt like I did learn about the origins of the gender power imbalance and some modern applications which I definitely appreciated. I was also really proud of my final research paper and felt I learned a lot about my topic from that experience. This class is not a super easy GE, but if you are interested in the topic, I would suggest it. Just don't expect much human interaction.

I'm graduating this quarter and writing this review has been at the back of my mind for the longest time (let's just say this class really pissed off my inner feminist and social justice warrior). I don't know if the format has changed or the content has been updated, but based on my experience from 2 years ago here's how I felt about this class. This class tries to paint a narrative and any facts that don't fit it are simply not included. Some of the information taught in this class is outdated, and some readings were factually incorrect. Professor also lacks nuance when discussing feminism. If you want to actually learn I would recommend researching on your own or taking a different class. As a POC feminist, I regret taking this class.

I honestly did not have a good experience with this class at all. I think if you are looking to satisfy the writing ll requirement, there are much better options out there. The professor is not really involved, since it is asynchronous. The lectures are not helpful because they are very repetitive and they do not really talk about anything that will actually guide or help you with the final writing assignment. I used the topic that the professor provided in syllabus for my final writing assignment since she gave us numerous of options to use, yet I was told by my TA that the topic was too broad, therefore there is a large disconnect between the TAs and professor that needs to be resolved before the creation of the syllabus. 5/10 would not recommend :(

I am not sure why this class has such a range of ratings- I thought it was pretty easy. For summer quarter, we had one 3 page essay due week 2, and after that it was all work for the final with a part due each week. This was a great class to take C sesh if you are wanting to fulfill your writing II. Not the most engaging class but some of it was pretty interesting honestly.

This class was absolutely spectacular. It fulfills three GE's (Historical Analysis, Diversity, and Writing II) and the professor is so inspiring and interesting to listen to. The class was built around having weekly readings and lectures that cumulated in a one-page Activity Journal at the end of the week. The readings and lectures were awesome and super helpful and could often be skimmed. The lectures and videos took maybe two hours to knockout with the most readings and lectures at the beginning of the class. Then, every week a one-page activity Journal was due based on what you learned that week. Super easy. There was only ever one super hard reading but the TA spent a lot of time making sure we understood. There were only ever two real "tests" in the form of essays and neither was particularly difficult. The lecture videos are wonderfully produced and extremely engaging and the workload is so minor that most of the class would finish the week's work in a day (though I don't recommend that lol) Overall, I will highly, highly recommend this class.

This class is amazing if you want to learn about what women power entails in a society. All the material is intriguing to read. However, this class is quite tedious. We have to write a 1-page essay every week that is based on the week's readings. The readings can be short or super long which can take up to hours to read. Professor Cooney is super cool.

Professor Cooney has been such a pleasure to be taught by. She is the definition of a boss woman and always manages to make lectures so engaging...and not just interesting, like a literal TV show. I absolutely adore this course despite the fact that there is a MASSIVE workload of readings and discussions and etc.

Heavy workload, especially during summer, but manageable. You are required to watch videos and open the readings for participation and have to meet with your TA once in the quarter. There are writing assignments every week but only a page long response is needed. The most difficult part of the class is, of course, the essay. Finding 8 sources and integrating it into a cohesive organized essay can be a bit challenging. The TA grades harshly for the rough draft with low grade averages but it seems that the grading for the final paper and paper recording is more lenient. Overall I do recommend this as everything is asynchronous however, make sure to have time to focus on this class.

I agree with some of the Fall 2021 reviews, as this class was relatively interesting and truly is about what the class entails, women and power in the ancient world. Professor Cooney's lectures were engaging and you can tell how passionate she was about the topic, but besides that, this is mainly a review of the structure of the class since this is what a lot of people want. There is a LARGE AMOUNT of writing to be done in this class because it is a writing II and a GE requirement. The material isn't hard to grasp but the work itself is very tedious sometimes. There are weekly activity journals (with a prompt) that you'd have to look at the readings and lecture to answer + other participation (40%), a 3-4 page Mann synthesis paper (10%), final 10-12 page research paper/podcast script (45%), and a final presentation (5%). It is a lot I will not lie, but it's split into the quarter fairly well, especially since the course is all online-asynchronous(for the in-person discussion I think they had discussion participation instead of writing activity journals). The prompts were very open-ended but it made it sort of hard to formulate some form of ideas and even tell if your ideas are valid... but your TA is the main source of support and also your grade as well. The stressful part was mainly just the final paper because of the page requirement and how much of your grade it determined, but your TA gives you feed back on your rough draft for you to improve your grade. So yes, this course is heavily reliant on your TA. Thus, this class was exhausting I won't lie but I can definitely say I learned a lot from the course... but I would not really go out of my way to take it out of interest simply because of the amount of work that there was to do!

Dr. Cooney is really nice, but you honestly don’t interact with her much. Most of your experience in this class depends on your TA, since they’re the main point of contact and the ones grading your work. The workload is super manageable, and the content itself is really interesting. Everything builds up to a final paper, but the assignments are structured in a way that makes it very manageable and well-scaffolded, so you don’t feel overwhelmed.