Professor Duranti was a tad boring during lectures, but everything you needed to know was in the reading. The reading was extremely straightforward and easy to anticipate what type of questions would be on the exams. Basically, if he went over something in class and it was matched in the reading, you'd be tested on it. I managed a B+ with little effort. One 5-7 page book report (150-200 page book) and a very short group project. Overall, pretty easy GE. Take it, Duranti's a good professor and entertaining with his jokes and accent.

Reasons not to take this class: Duranti is a passive-aggressive narcissist who cannot keep his own thoughts straight, much less communicate them to others. He is obsessed with whether or not all 250 people in class are listening and watching. He can spot someone not paying attention to him or nodding off in the back of the auditorium. He spends way too much time trying to embarrass these people than he does teaching. He seems to have no concept of anything other than himself and his own (self) interest. He frets a lot over whether or not people can see him, hear him, belive him, etc., etc., etc. His classes are mind-numbingly boring, as is the dumbing-down power point and handouts he relies on to teach his class. His only other obsession seems to be his wife's work of which you will learn a lot. His readings are baised, ridiculously outdated, his wife's and closed to non-UCLA personnel. He is just a very bad teacher.
Reasons to take this class: You never have to go to lecture and can get an 'A' easily. TA's try very hard to teach in discussion and are available to students (mine was terrific). Duranti's tests are almost entirely based on readings which you can do on your own. Hs tests are easy, although they are ridiculously long. If you do go to lecture, you can catch up on other work, do crossword puzzles, take a nap or read the works in the reader.
Pay attention to the tone of these reviews. I did not and this was truly the worst class and worst teacher I have ever had. This was written by an anthro major, "A' student who got an 'A' in this class and was initially excited to take this class. I had considered specializing in linguistics. I dread having to ever take another class in this subject.

This class has some of the most challenging readings, but I guess thats what you'd expect from a five unit class, right? I thought Prof. Duranti was a moderately challeging teacher to understand because he improvises a lot during lecture, but the main points of his lectures are pretty clear because he hands out outlines before each lecture. In this sense, he kinda leads you to make the connections to the readings and his lectures yourself (he'll never make them completely explicit especially before an exam), which is cool when you finally figure them out. Also, there is no answer key for his open ended study questions which leaves you with answers that are too short or too long, but at least you are going in the right direction. The exams are fairly long and thorough, but having written longer answers for the study questions helps prepare (or overprepare) for this. In all, I thought Duranti was an excellent professor. I recommend him for two reasons, the material tells you so much about the world around us, and because you pick up so many useful methods in extracting data from texts, recordings, etc. in this class. Duranti stresses from the beginning that he is going to treat everyone like future scholars, and after taking his class, I definetely feel more confident that I can connect what I read and write to my research interests. By the way, if you are given the option to read his book for the book report, do it! It is the best way to understand the concepts in the class.

quit ragging on sandro, y'all! this class was indeed hard as hell for me, but only because i didn't have one of the better ta's. the assignments were actually pretty fun. i got out and did stuff i never would have done if it weren't for sandro. my eyes were opened to many new cultural experiences. i also loved his last lecture, which makes me a little teary-eyed just thinking about it. and also the muni bird story. anyway, if you take this class, do all of the assigned readings (that's what 95% of the tests are based upon) and make sure you get a good ta.

Ok, you guys...who said a GE class is supposed to be easy? Is that why good money is being spent for you to attend UCLA--to breeze through classes? You should be ashamed of yourselves! I really enjoyed Anthro 33--Duranti is an expert in his field. Lectures were informative, and I'll admit I hate group projects but they DID teach me how to work as a team towards a goal. Tests were totally fair--and if you pay attention and do the reading you'll do just fine. A good class and important if you wish to discover the diversity of human experience. Definitely not boring--and if a little reading scares you why are you in college? Go serve burgers and fries :0)

Professor Duranti is a really great guy. I went to see him in his office hours a couple times and he always made sure to ask me about how the class was going and even my other classes. It is true that the readings are the most important part of the class. Most of the tests are based off of them. Contrary to what other posts say, the reading load is not that much compared to a normal social science class. I thought the tests and projects weren't too hard. I did really well on them, but that may have just been my TA. Overall though, this is a great class and a great professor.

I took this class about 2 years ago. I was reading through people's comments and thought I had to submit a review because Professor Duranti is getting a worse reputation than he deserves. I found his class to be pretty enjoyable. While I did think some of his assignments were a waste of time, they were pretty easy. There is a lot of reading (which you must do in order to get an A in the class), but over all it is not that boring or difficult. The exams (which are composed mostly of short essay questions-approximately a page for each one) do make you feel a bit pressed for time but if you have done your reading you should do just fine. Discussions aren't very helpful but they are required since you earn points for attendance. If you end up with a good TA, consider yourself very lucky because the TAs are the ones that do the grading. Also, Professor Duranti does spend a lot of time talking about his own (and his wife's) field work. This does get a bit annoying sometimes, but over all it's actually very interesting to see what goes on in a culture that seems so different from our own. You really must wait until the end of the course to really appreciate what you are being taught and exposed to. It all comes together at the end, but you need to keep an open mind and be ready to take in everything the course has to offer.

I enjoyed Duranti's class. I have to admit that the lectures were sometimes boring and the reading was overwhelming at times, but I felt that the material was interesting (if you're into social science kinda stuff). I also thought that Duranti was really concerned about all his students. How many teachers in a lower div intro class ask students to fill out evaluations of them after every class and e-mails the class on an almost weekly basis? He also changed our third assignment in order to suit all the students' needs. None of my other professors did that. But I think this class has more to do with the TAs because they grade everything and some of them are more pickier than others. I think as long as you get the basic concepts and go to the TA reviews, then it's easy to get a passing grade in the midterm and finals. Overall I enjoyed his class and I would recommend him to other people.

First, professor Duranti is really into what he teaches. In the first few classes, you really are excited about the class lectures. Then, as you realize that you have way too much reading to do, and that the reading is sometimes impossible to get through because the articles chosen to teach topics in the class use vocabulary and "understood" ideas that only liguistic anthropologists themselves, or interested students taking upper division courses in the subject area would understand. The assignments are really easy if you have good writing skills. Be careful on the midterm, you have SO little time for the amount requried of you. Also, don't bother buying the book "Key Terms"--he tries to squeeze it in, but it really doesn't fit any of the material all that well. He isn't even using it on our final.

I had low interest in linguistic anthropology coming into the course, and I have an even lower interest now. It's just soooooo boring. Sections were boring too. Sometimes you just sit there in lecture and listen to music for the whole time and "analyze it in an anthropological point of view." Ugggh. Duranti himself is an okay guy. His assignments are vague so you don't really know what he expects from you, until you get it back and realize he expected something completely opposite of what you did. Sometimes you'll get lucky and actually do well. His midterm was crazy-some of the questions come from nowhere. You have about one hour to answer 5 essay questions, some matching and true-false parts, and whatever else he chooses to add. It is very stressful and rushed. And might I add that there is a lot of reading. There are sometimes around 80 pages of really boring reading for one lecture. I didn't enjoy this class but I got a B in it so it's all right. I wouldn't recommend it, but I won't discourage it. If it interests you go for it, if not, steer clear.