Though there was a ton of reading for this course (easily 6+ hours a week) and it was sometimes quite dry (though it got better over the course of the semester), I always found the actual class pretty engaging. Professor Heller is an engaging lecturer and class discussions usually flowed pretty well because her of well-chosen, not too philosophical questions. You could tell that she was doing all she could to make the two and half hour time slot not drag too much. Aside from weekly reading responses which are quick and easy, there are four short papers and one longer research project for the final. I thought the papers were graded fairly though on the tougher side, but found Professor Heller very helpful when I went to office hours during the writing process.