Enormous amounts of reading and often boring lectures, but immensely rich and interesting material

This is an interesting class but poorly formatted. Maybe Betzer will ease up once she's gained tenure, but right now she is making the class way more intensive than it should be. To do well you need to complete the readings -- which are not generally about art history but more about a theoretical/historical/anthropological study of Paris. Fascinating material but not really worth the work. Take history of France from revolution instead -- much more rewarding

Interesting class. A lot of readings that if you attend to lecture and take good notes are not required. One midterm (she gives a study guide), one paper and final. Although, the midterm and paper are easy the final was very hard (different sections and each section had an specific time).

Professor Betzer's class sounds very interesting, but it is not a typical art history class. She believes in a "classroom experience" and does NOT allow laptops and she does NOT post lecture slides, so if either of those are important to you, her class isn't for you. Her "art history" class is much more of a class about theories of modernity, urbanization, and city planning and then a little politics, fashion, architecture, and art history. Grades are composed of a midterm (35%), a paper (25%), and a final (40%). Neither exam was overly difficult, but her class just has a TON of material associated with it. In addition, she assigns a lot of reading that people eventually stopped doing. (The folder on Collab with scanned reading assignments has over 50 documents) However, the readings are sometimes important for exams and were directly tested. Finally, the paper was only 5-6 pages and deals with readings assigned for lectures. She offered two choices (one due at the end of September and one at the end of November), but she only allows for one week between lecture/reading due date and the deadline for the paper. She seems relatively enthusiastic about what she teaches and is certainly knowledgeable, but by the end of the semester I was tired of her flowery language. Lectures were not always clearly organized, and content was often theoretical in nature. If you're interested in theories about modernity, this class can be relatively interesting, but be prepared for a lot of work.