HIEU 2061

DO NOT be fooled by the good reviews of this class. I would imagine the only people who would like this class are people who LOVE European History and know a decent amount already so they aren't bothered by all Kershaw leaves out and how much he skips around. He is an entertaining lecturer, I'll give him that. But this class is ridiculous. It is far too difficult for the level of class it is. This isn't because I don't like hard classes, I do, but this class was impossible because of the expectations. For papers you are expected to answer one simple question with a very detailed and specific answer that Kershaw wants, but you have no idea what he wants from the question. Same is true for the exams. Very knit picky. Far too much reading that is too spread out. Kershaw's lectures are ALL over the place. Each class has a slideshow of about 60 slides filled with text. You have no idea what is important and whats not. I really wanted to like this class, but I wish I'd dropped it when I had the chance. Kershaw is also condescending and stuck up in person. I'll do fine in this class mainly because I worked my ass off, but its just a ridiculous class and the expectations are way too unreasonable. Also, do the papers EARLY cause they creep up on you and you find yourself needing to write on weekly at the end of the semester if you're not careful.

Kershaw is one of, if not the most entertaining lecturers at the university, hands down. That being said, most of the primary sources for this class are pretty dull and difficult to sit through. The time period and complimentary textbook readings, however, are interesting and bring the class to life. The class itself is not difficult and the participation/paper grades will balance your grade if you demonstrate some interest in the course to your TA. Sorber is a great TA.

Kershaw made for an excellent lecturer, but that's really all he did as the TA's run the discussion portion of the class. The material itself was particularly interesting, but difficult to understand at times. What was nice is that the topics that were discussed in the discussion section of the class were fairly intriguing, which kept it fresh. Good class overall, even if it required a decent amount of work.

Don't take this class if you don't care about ancient history. More than anything, this will effect your grade. Overall, the class isn't that hard but if you don't find the topic interesting you won't want to do the work. The midterm and final are relatively easy if you come to lecture easily and go to discussion to fill in the gaps. I recommend you get Courtney as your TA. You have to write 4 short papers on the discussion reading that your TA will grade but other than that the class isn't all that much work because the lecture readings are not necessary.

I absolutely loved this class...I had no clue I was interested in history until I took it. Professor Kershaw is a GREAT professor; very animated and enthusiastic, as well as extremely knowledgable (and has a British accent). He was able to thoroughly explain the complex histories of the pre-Middle Ages and Middle Ages, a lot of which I hadn't previously learned about it any history class. Make sure you go to every lecture and take detailed notes. There is no 'textbook' for this class, only a course book that has readings for each discussion section. So, all of the information Kershaw says in class is basically the only way info is provided; the section readings are sources and documents, mostly an enforcement for what was learned in lecture. The two papers, midterm, and final were manageable and fairly graded; not much homework except for the weekly section reading (meaning you learn a lot each lecture). My TA, Drew Sorber, was also excellent, very knowledgeable, and made section easy to get through. Highly recommend this class!

This course is excellent. It also falls short of its potential. More on that later. The course is a survey of European history from late Antiquity/early Middle Ages to the late Middle Ages/early Modernity (~1000 years). More emphasis is definitely placed on the earlier stuff than on the later stuff. Kershaw is very knowledgable, very articulate, and British. He is also frustratingly disorganized. He lectures very quickly and his lectures lack coherent structure. In fact, he spends most of each lecture wrapping up the topic from the previous lecture, and only at the very end of a lecture does he get to the new material. This makes for a disappointing, if still enjoyable, experience in lecture. Drew is hands-down my favorite TA I've had in all my time at UVA. He is smart, organized, and chill. He's a bro, really. His discussion sections are relaxed and insightful. He also lectured a couple of times in place of Kershaw - while he has the potential to be a good lecturer, he was often forced to catch up on the material after Kershaw had fallen behind and, as a result, Drew would have to skip over a great deal of material. The work load in this course is very manageable. There is a midterm exam and a final exam - neither of which are cumulative. Each exam has two sections - IDs (~25%) and passage IDs (~75%). The passage IDs come from the primary sources. While you are supposed to read both primary and secondary readings for each week's discussion section, it is most important that you focus on the primary sources. Not only are these important for the exams, but they are the foundations of the papers that you write. There are four opportunities to write papers, and you have to write two. You also can write more than two and only your best two grades will be counted. The last segment of your grade is participation, which comes less from attendance at lecture and more from your preparation/attendance/participation in discussion. I really enjoyed this course and highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in medieval Europe. This being said, know that there is potential for disappointment, for great as this course is, there is room for improvement.

Professor Kershaw was easily one of my favorite professors. He has a British accent that makes lectures much more interesting and he is extremely enthusiastic about the topics. Overall, the class itself was not too difficult but it definitely requires a lot of effort. You are required to write 2 essays and there are 5 opportunities. You can write up to 3 essays and they grade the 2 highest essays. In addition to this, there are 2 exams, the midterm and the final and both are 50 minutes. The other portion of your grade will be the discussion and that requires a lot of work because you constantly need to be engaged and knowledgeable. Advice for anyone who takes this class, prepare for discussions and be involved even if you are scared, it's necessary. Go to office hours and study your notes from class because they will help you with essays and discussions.

I took this class as a first year due to a recommendation from a friend who had also taken it first semester first year. It was definitely more work than I expected and required a lot more weely effort than most of my other classes. Kershaw is a very knowledgeable lecturer but has a tendency to lecture on topics all over the place, which can make it difficult to recognize what to take notes on during lecture. He speaks quickly, so your best bet is to try to write in as much detail as possible, because the midterm and final will include terms from a list on his website that were terms mentioned in lecture. Your notes will also help you when it comes time to write the essays: there are 5 opportunities to write them over the course of the semester, and you have to write at least two (with the option of writing three and your TA will only take the top two grades). On Kershaw's website it says the essay topics will be released giving you two weeks to write each one, but in reality, by the time the essay topic came out, the due date was a week away so you pretty much had to spend a lot of time writing over that weekend to finish the 5/6 page essay. Because of the short time to write each essay, it's important to start writing them early in the semester otherwise you'll find yourself writing one a week towards the end, and you won't receive your grade from your last essay before writing your next one. Besides essay writing, the majority of work goes into preparing for discussion, since you'll read around 600 pages of medieval European text over the course of the semester. I spent a lot of time on those readings so I could contribute to discussion, but also so that I knew the readings pretty well going into the midterm and final, because besides defining terms, on the exams you have to be able to identify passages taken directly from the primary sources you have read. This includes identifying the title of the text, when it was written, its author, and the significance, which can seem difficult but luckily the exams are not cumulative. Also, everything is weighted equally in the class (20% for the midterm, final, participation, essay 1 and essay 2), so as long as you start putting in the work early, an A is doable. You just have to decide if you want to put in the time and effort to get an A.

This course was particularly affected by COVID, causing Professor Kershaw to scrap the exams and replace them with essays. The only grades in the class were three essays and discussion participation. Participation is not too difficult as long as you read the texts thoroughly (and let me say that while a few texts are not super exciting, others were more interesting, e.g. the Waltharius). The class was also set back by the asynchronous lectures which distanced the class from Professor Kershaw. He seemed like a very intelligent and kind professor, but I never had a chance to speak with him. Unfortunately the content of the lectures did not end up serving much purpose since the essays were based entirely upon the texts, but it was certainly relevant to the texts. I assume the lectures would have been much more important if we had exams. The TA Nadav was admittedly not the best as he did not stimulate discussion very well, but the discussions still seemed fairly fruitful (granted, these discussions were over Zoom). I will say that the essays helped improved my writing. #tCF2020

Professor Kershaw is a knowledgeable and well-meant instructor. However, his class and the TA, Nadav, was less than satisfactory. Instead of the two exams, two essays, and discussion factoring into the grade, Kershaw scrapped exams in favor of three papers. Because the papers required an analysis of the primary sources provided in a massive course pack, the lectures became irrelevant. After the midpoint of the course, I stopped watching them, solely focusing on reading the content in preparation for discussion. Discussions met once a week over Zoom. The TA, Nadav Zadoyka, led these discussions and, unfortunately, did a poor job facilitating discussions. Despite doing well and earning an "A" in the discussion section, I feared talking because if I were wrong with any of my points, he would bluntly and quickly let you know. There was no constructive criticism on papers, along with the harsh grading for no necessary reason. I earned a "B+" in the class but would have earned an "A-" or higher with a normal History Department TA. If you are not deeply interested in early Europe, do NOT take this class, and do NOT take HIEU 3141 in the Spring, as there is the same combination. Take a class with a better TA or professor who will not intimidate you and motivate you to do better. I know Nadav tried his best, but he failed because he could not utilize positive reinforcement with students, which could have helped lighten the mood and enhanced the weekly discussions.