PLIR 3060

Copeland's a pretty charismatic guy who really knows his stuff. Yes, he is biased toward his Dynamic Differentials theory, but he makes you fully aware of that and encourages you to challenge him. The course is a lot of theory, and your grade will be based on whether or not you can make a good argument.

All the reviews about Copeland welcoming new perspectives/theories that contrast his own are spot on. He makes a serious effort to have student involvement in lecture, adding opposing evidence. views, etc. That said, his theory is the driving force of the class, and it seems to be a good perspective but still stretched to fit all the case studies. Class will be slow if you've done other IR.

Lots of reading, but fun and doable. Go to class and take good notes, they are extremely important.

This class has a lot of reading, so be prepared and keep up. Copeland is an engaging lecturer and the information is interesting. Just a take-home midterm and essay final in-class-- but you can bring an index card with notes

Copeland is an amazing lecturer and makes the class very interesting. There is one 10 page paper and a final exam where you write 3 essays. The grading is a pretty fair, a decent essay and final will get you a B/B+ in the course.
Definitely a worthwhile class for any politics major at UVA (or anyone else interested in the subject).

Fairly hard class with many difficult readings. Copeland doesn't make much sense during the first part of the course, but when you start case studies it all comes together. I didn't do most of the reading and still ended up with a B+. He makes the final pretty easy for you.

Tough class. Alot of material and a self study final. Interesting if thats what you're into, but very difficult to get in the A/A- range

This course is less about the actual use of military force in international relations and more about the theory of war. I thoroughly enjoyed the class, and definitely learned quite a bit. Professor Copeland is truly passionate about the subject, which makes lecture that much more enjoyable!

Great class - love Copeland and material is very interesting. However very reading intensive and grade is basically midterm and final so you have to do well on both. Overall highly recommend

The material is pretty original and Copeland is a very interesting lecturer with his very personal opinion on the matter. He's pretty open minded though and ready to discuss anything in class or during office hours.
The amount of readings is ridiculously important and it's impossible to keep up but you can get a pretty good idea of it when attending lectures.
The midterm is a take home paper of 9 pages, it was pretty hard but helped reviewing the material. The questions for the final are handed a week before.
I'd strongly recommend NOT to take Karen as a TA, she was really nice but teaching clearly is not her thing and discussion were really boring, sometimes useless.