HIEU 2031

Lendon is an amazing lecturer. I never wanted to miss a single class and truly enjoyed listening. The readings are numerous and lengthy but missing one here or there shouldn’t be a problem if you go to class. 10/10 recommend this class for anyone willing to put in the time.

Take this course! Coming from a non-history major, Lendon made me look forward to every lecture and I can truly say I enjoyed each one. He's witty, eloquently spoken, and has a knack for storytelling in a way that kept my attention -- he changes his volume, expression, and pace often -- on topics that can be confusing and/or lengthy. It's a privilege to learn from him, and one I think every UVa student should take advantage of. Each lecture ended with a Lendon-signature cliffhanger that ties up in a neat little bow all that we learned that day while foreshadowing the next class. Unlike other classes, nobody packs up until he finishes his lectures. The readings were, admittedly, really tedious and I sometimes dreaded taking the time to do them. But if you allot the time needed (maybe ~2 hours/day if it's a lengthy assignment), they aren't that bad. The textbook is good for understanding the events in modern language, and although the historical texts can be difficult to digest, weekly discussion breaks them down. For discussion, Kevin Woram is a fantastic TA. He made me look forward to every discussion because he was funny, approachable, respectful, and genuinely helpful in organizing huge chunks of history in my mind. The midterm and final were, in my opinion, highly stressful beforehand but with enough studying, not too difficult-- that is to say, the course provides you with the necessary info so it's not blindsiding, but it requires work to memorize and understand. The essay(s) are a good way to improve your grade because you have a reasonably long timeframe to complete one or both ~7 page double spaced papers (depending on which option you choose). Memorizing dates is crucial to doing well in the class, and Lendon states early on that if this isn't your forte, it will be difficult. But, all in all, if you're willing to put in the work, the class is great!

I learned SO much in this course! Mr. Lendon is an absolute blast, who knows a ton about ancient greece. He asks a lot of his students -- there's a lot of IDs, a good amount of writing, and a lot of reading -- so you shouldn't take this course as an easy A. If you have time, PLEASE put consistent effort into this course, DO NOT try and learn all the IDs right before the tests and quizzes. You will have two chances to write an essay -- take the first one if you have time. I didn't read all of Herodotus and Thuc but I still got a fairly good grade. Overall, I would definitely take this course again!

Listen. WHOEVER likes this class and wrote all of these absolutely glowing reviews, you MUST be crazy. I read these courseforum reviews looking for a fun class to fill up my fourth year and I thought wow! This seems like a class I should NOT miss! But guess what. I am a fourth year and this is the first and only class I have WITHDRAWN from because it was so insane what Professor Lendon expected of you for a 2000 level history class. There was at least 70 pages of reading for lecture and then another 70 for discussion, not to mention he forces you to buy an out of print textbook, 10 other books, and a specific course packet from NK Print. I spent easily $100+ on the materials for this class, but during lecture he has nearly no powerpoint and refers little to the readings–instead giving a rambling lecture with his awful voice that was impossible to follow. The first day of classes, he pulled some of that classic jerky teacher stuff where he screamed and yelled about his syllabus and how NOT lenient (synonym- INHUMANE) he is regarding grading and assignments. He gave a lengthy speech about how him and SDAC aren't friends, and basically he is not at all accommodating to students with disabilities/need extra test time. Had I been an SDAC student listening to him berate his first day students about this point in particular, I would have been mortified! I would have walked out of the class immediately. How rude and disrespectful for a professor, who's job it is to help students learn and achieve, to make a joke of a very real program helping students with disabilities. He also said during this crazy tangent, and I quote, "I am the kind of person who, when they see a cute fluffy bunny on the side of the road, I just want to – *makes garish choking motion with his hands*". What the heck?? I should have dropped this class when I had the chance. Of course during the second class he quickly told us he was "running a fever" the first class, therefore excusing him from any blame for the crazy things he said. Oh yeah, not to mention pop quizzes during discussion that I failed even after doing the readings and attending lectures. I'm sure Professor Lendon will read this review and scoff, but please trust me. This class is not worth your time, and not worth your dollars. Don't take it unless you absolutely have to, and even then think really hard about it.

Do NOT take this class to fill a gen ed. The amount of work he requires you to do is ridiculous. I was reading about 100 pages a week for the discussion and another 70 for the class. He did not treat this at all like a 2000 level class. I learned a lot and the lectures were interesting but the amount of work you have to put into this class is completely not worth it. Along with reading the 100 pages for the discussion, you are also required to memorize approximately 40 definitions and map locations per week; you have to come up with your own definitions and you don't know if they are sufficient or not until you fail the pop quiz in the discussion section. The exams are extremely difficult. The only exams are a midterm and a final. You have to know the definitions of all of the words you studied during the semester. Also, you are required to remember every passage you read from any of the books throughout the semester. He provides a random passage and you have to identify the background, which book it was from, who the author was, and even more details. How are you supposed to remember all of this???? DO NOT LISTEN TO THE REVIEWS THAT SAY TAKE THIS COURSE YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT. The people who wrote those reviews must have been crazy or this was their only difficult course they took that semester. I am in the e-school and this was my lowest grade that semester and I was pissed. The grading is crazy. I got a B on both papers I wrote, but for my second paper, the only comments were related to a spelling error in one of the names, even though I showed the TA that the name was spelled that way in the book. He merely chuckled and said "oh yah!" and I never got any points back even though there was nothing else wrong with my paper. Save yourself the time and energy and do not take this class.

This is a really, really, really good class but certainty not something most people can handle. If you cannot study for this about 8-10 hours on this per day leading up to the exam, you will most likely have a shit grade. Look at the grade distribution. The readings can be incredibly boring (Homer, Hesiod for example), but the generally topic is super interesting. The readings are not necessary to shine in discussion however, as I found out on some of my busier weeks. I would highly recommend to someone who is interested in investing time in a solid understanding of Ancient Greek History. You could probably convince someone you majored in Ancient Greek history by the end. This is why Mr. Lendon is fantastic, even if during exam prep time and term paper writing time your enthusiasm might dip some. I had Thomas Davidson for a TA, he was fantastic. I have similarly heard great things about Joshua Mackay, but there might be different TAs by the time you take it. Many people here saying it's too hard have crazy weak standards for difficulty. I am in the engineering school way out of my comfort zone in my first semester at UVA and I got an A. It is not impossible to do well in, just requires high time investment.

Lendon's a pretty damn cool professor, and especially an amazing lecturer. His lectures are 110% super fun and interesting -- he was the one lecturer whose lectures I didn't fall asleep in for the entire semester. But be warned: this man assigns SO. MUCH. READING. I'm talking about 100-200 pages a week, not including the "textbook's" (it's called AG in the syllabus) reading. Those 100-200 pages a week are straight from texts of Ancient Greece primary sources and they are so painful. With those, I'd recommend knowing what will be (and what won't be) on the exams. Skim everything, especially if you're on a time crunch, but I'd recommend reading speeches, certain battles, and the defining characteristics of military/political leaders that Lendon lectured about for your discussions and exams. I went the entire semester without reading the AG textbook -- it's basically a way for people who were absent to know what happened in lecture. Overall, I would recommend sitting in Lendon's lectures, but if you have a heavy semester ahead of you, you probably want to steer clear of this course.

This is the best course I’ve taken at UVA so far. While it was certainly a difficult course (the readings were 150 pgs a week on average), Professor Lendon is the most interesting lecturer I’ve had the pleasure of listening to. Provided you have any interest in ancient history, you’ll probably feel the same. He somehow had the ability to make a 50-minute lecture on exclusively ancient boats entertaining. The man knows his stuff, and is great at also getting you to know your stuff. The exams were pretty difficult, consisting of a section of IDs, which are different people, places, events, and things that were discussed throughout the course, passage IDs, which task you with identifying the author and context of a passage you previously read in the course, and then longer-form essays. There were also infrequent quizzes on the IDs of the week in section. So while this course is definitely a lot of work, you will come out of it with a great amount of knowledge of archaic and classical Greece and will have had a great time in lecture. I wholeheartedly recommend this class.

By far the best class I have taken at UVA to date. Yes, it's not an easy A and requires a good bit of reading and attention during lectures, but overall the effort is worth it. Discussions were great and went over and summarised lectures as well as the weekly readings quite well. The class does require A LOT of reading but not all of it is essential to the class and much of it can be skimmed over or skipped altogether. Lendons lectures are extremely interesting and are much of the reason I am majoring in history. Overall would most definitely recommend this class

What everyone else has written about this class is very accurate. To sum it up --- amazing lectures, you'll learn a lot, but you'll be miserable with the amount of reading and difficulty of the exams. The exams are grueling, with term IDs, passage IDs, and essays. The content is super interesting but the brute memorization of terms on top of hundreds of pages of reading each week is tough. I'd still recommend the class because Lendon is a really great, interesting lecturer, but be prepared to need a lot of serious studying time around exams. If you can have Hank Lanphier as a TA (in this class or any other) he is phenomenal --- the best TA I've had at UVA by far #tCFfall22