I am trying to sell the books that I bought for this course since I will no longer need them. My email is *************. I have all the books except for The Romans by Antony Kamm ( that one I rented for Chegg because it was too pricy). Feel free to contact me if you are interested!

This class was a really easy A- there is no need to attend lecture, just discussion. Definitely try to have Anna as your TA- she is wonderful and makes discussion really interesting. I’m also selling books for this class- email *************

The only good thing about this class is that you get to learn about using sketchup and see his research models, other than that, it is a mess. Worst experience ever in UCLA

Took 164: Spectacle of Rome. This class is frustrating and way more trouble than it’s worth. DON’T take it unless you have no other choice. I chose this class over another one because it made my schedule nice, but I ended up regretting that decision until the very last day until the paper was due after finals week....

The problem isn’t with the professor as a person. Johanson’s kind of a socially awkward guy, but he’s amiable and open to class criticism. He’s pretty busy with research and his family, so he returns emails with 2-3 day lag. He gives the class his cell number so you can text him. If you can get a hold of him, he’s willing to make time for students outside office hours. In his defense, he grades fairly.

My main problem is the sheer amount of work required for the class. Participation is easy, but lecture and readings don’t really go together. There are anywhere from 40-100 pages of dense readings per week that you pretty much must read to complete the problem sets (questions about the readings) which make up the exam material. Many questions in the problem sets are difficult to answer because they don’t exactly match the readings. Johanson goes over the problem sets on some days, but you never reach all the questions.

To study for the exams, just memorize all the problem set answers. Midterm and final were the same format of short answer/bullet points and creative essay at the end. He grades pretty fairly. The final was cumulative which was a LOT to go over. We had a problem set for 9/10 weeks. A short problem set is maybe 5 pages on a Google Doc; a long one 13-15 pages. Trying to work on the project in-between studying is difficult if you have other classes with finals/deadlines around the same time.

The final project is a 5 minute presentation + paper which you must research because you need to identify the transformation of a spectacle at any 3 points in time or characteristic. If you choose a topic not touched upon in class, it's a laborious process. The professor gives you the full prompt pretty late, either 6th or 7th week. It’s not even outlined on the syllabus, so you don’t know what you’re getting into until it’s too late. The paper is 2000 word minimum for individual work, 3000 for a 2-person group, and 4000 for 3-person group. For your presentation, you’re expected to work with Google sketchup or Google earth to make visual aids. I'd say do at least two animations or screenshots of a scene. Definitely don't do these at last minute.

Without a doubt the worst class I have taken in my years at UCLA. This isn't because of the difficult material and "midterm" covering 8 weeks of intensive reading. No, neither of those put this class on my blacklist. Rather, the structure of the course is such that more than half of your grade hinges on a group project, both in presentation and essay form. Unless you know friends with good work ethics who are going into the class with you, you're forced to pick out of the grab bag and hope for the best. Even if you do find a good group, there is a chance he will rearrange you if the group numbers aren't all how he wants them. I had the misfortune of getting group members who were mostly either bad writers or "worked better under pressure", meaning that they won't contribute until finals week. Admittedly, this isn't a direct criticism of the professor. However, he makes little effort to ensure that everyone is participating with quality work, and his only attempt at doing so is having everyone in the group submit an individual self-evaluation, telling him what they think they personally deserve. I have nothing against difficult courses, but when a grade isn't completely in the hands of the person earning it, there is something wrong.

The other reviews written for this class fail to do the professor and the course content justice. While Professor Johanson is a busy man, and grading of assignments is extremely delayed, he is an engaging, forgiving, and amenable instructor. The readings are all generally interesting; though they can be excessive, they are not essential to your success in the course. He provides "problem sets" as guiding questions for the reading, but they are not turned in or graded in any way. The midterm was given in Week 8 as a take-home exercise. He had us pick our own questions from the various problems sets throughout the course, answer them, and assign the entire assignment a difficulty that would serve as our max possible grade. He is a very lenient grader. Tuesday classes would be conducted in the lab where he would guide us through hands on experiences using Google Earth and his own multiplayer recreations of the Roman Forum to illustrate concepts. The final was a individual or group project using the 3-D worlds to tell an argument. Overall, this class was extremely informative and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the spectacles of ancient Rome. The 3-D worlds were a delight to explore and helped to provide more familiarity with the setting and context for the lectures.

If you like 100% independent learning and limited interaction with the professor and your classmates, this is the class for you. If you need structure and weekly check-ins to do well, I would advise you not to take this class. The material studied in this class is also very niche and limited, so be aware of that (you will be studying funeral rites, gladiatorial games, and theater). Professor Johanson was also very generous and understanding throughout the quarter, so as long as you communicate with him, you should be fine.

The grading for this class consisted of weekly homework assignments (the greatest % of your grade), a final "exam," and a final project.

The weekly assignments consisted of answering a set of questions based on the readings. They were easy but very long and time-consuming. There were 8 in total, but you only had to 7/8. Professor Johanson offered extra credit if you did all 8.

The final exam was super simple and took no more than 10 minutes. As he said in an email, students did not have to study as long as they did the readings/work.

The final project was a creative one. We had to orchestrate an entire Roman-style funeral based on real people we could choose from a UCLA database of prominent Ancient Romans.