Professor Morris is a great guy! He always had jokes for us in lecture. The way the class was run was very disorganized, there was an issue with grading and a lot my classmates had their grades curved down a month after the course ended. The readings aren't really required, you just have to know the philosophical principles from each book. There is also a final paper, but you have ample time to work on it. However, grading and due dates were very disorganized (depends on your TA).

Herb Morris is such a character. He opens class by claiming that you will never again take a class quite like this, and man he is so right about that. The dude's literally 90 years old but talks about literature and paintings with so much enthusiasm that you'll wanna show up to lectures just because of how adorable they are.

My fair share of gripes for this class come from the idea that Professor Morris is an interesting fellow but perhaps not the best teacher. What I found was most of this class was him telling us about his own interpretations and findings in the texts, and the midterms and finals really just required you to memorize how he felt and recite those feelings. You don't get to do a lot of independent or critical thinking here, which is a huge bummer considering you were probably looking to take a philosophy class.

My favorite part was the exposure I got to some of the most fantastic philosophical texts ever. I didn't come from a background or understanding of this field, but everything we read here was an extremely effective jumpstart. I could not put down the hundreds of pages of required reading. Even if, for the purpose of the class, many of the readings were unnecessary -- especially considering we really just needed to know a basic plot skeleton, and Morris provided the rest -- if you direct yourself and find yourself interested, there is a LOT to dive into, and a hell of a lot to learn from. And you can benefit a lot from his office hours, where he talks much more at length and more readily takes feedback and criticisms from students. That's probably the best time to exercise those muscles, as the bulk of the class doesn't necessarily revolve around your understanding of the readings so much as it does your understanding of his understanding of the readings.

We also literally spent the first 2 or 3 weeks looking at the same 2 paintings. The assigned homework was, like, 4 different whole books, but lectures were about paintings. It freaked me the f out. But that's just kinda how it goes. I think I still loved it.

Professor Morris is a very old professor that brings his own experiences and thought to the lecture subjects and allows you to either agree and disagree with him which was thought provoking and engaging. The amount of books he expects you to read for the quarter is outrageous, but you can get by with reviewing summaries of the readings discussed and reading whats in the course reader. None of his lectures have slides, so you have to pay attention if you want good notes. The class was annoying for me in the sense that he was never clear about assignments and writing topics and only talked about his thoughts on the readings but overall, it was a pretty easy and relaxed class with only a midterm, one paper, and a final.
Also, I am selling the course reader for $15. Text me **********

Professor Morris is definitely a very insightful man with a lot of interesting ideas on the human condition. He's charming and friendly, and having gone to some office hours I can attest to the fact that he is a pleasure to converse with. However, I found his lectures absolutely unbearable. He tends to communicate ideas in a very roundabout manner, spending an hour+ on ideas that could be explained in a handful of minutes. The amount of people present at lecture steadily dropped as the quarter progressed, until about half the seats were empty. Lecture definitely is not a necessity, as most of what is discussed is Professor Morris' personal opinions on the subject matter (and you get marked off on Midterm/Final for not being original enough).

Discussions were much more enjoyable, as my TA had a knack for explaining Professor Morris' wild ideas in a much more straightforward way. Also, discussions were the only opportunity we were given to engage in conversation and share our own thoughts, which rarely ever happened in lecture. Definitely don't read all the texts (unless you really want to) - just google online summaries to understand the main themes, as we didn't really go in-depth on any of them.

I took this class thinking I might wanted to minor in Philosophy, and it made me realize I really don't. Don't recommend as a GE unless you enjoy reading a lot.

Basically, it is a lot like AP English... You read (or are expected to read) a loooot of novels, discuss the themes/characters/etc., and write essays on it.

The lectures are long and pass quite slowly. Professor Morris is quite old, as many others have mentioned. If you podcast the lectures and put them in double speed, it is a lot closer to how normal humans speak. He is very smart, and has a lot of good ideas, but it just gets hard listening to him ramble about jealousy or whatever for 2 hours.

This class wasn't really worth it for me. It's a GE, so I was hoping for an A, but I ended up with a B+. I guess I can't really complain, since I didn't do the majority of the readings and read summaries online instead. He expects you to read a LOT of books for this class. If you have other, more important classes, you are probably not going to find the time or desire to spend several hours reading a novel that he is only going to discuss one scene or character out of then move onto another novel.

It is also rather unclear on what is expected of you on midterms and finals. I thought my midterm was pretty solid, but I got a B/B-. Turns out, my TA gave everyone around the same grade. Really...? B- midterm in a GE? Come the final, and I still really wasn't sure what exactly we were supposed to write.

One cool thing is you can write an essay on whatever book/movie/etc. you want, as long as you connect it to themes in class.

Overall... If you are really passionate about reading, or philosophy, you may find this class worthwhile. If you are just looking for an easy or fun GE, I advise you to look elsewhere.

I'm selling the course reader and all required texts for this class. Text me if you are interested: **********.

Professor Morris is a really intriguing and interesting professor. He has a background in psychology, law, and philosophy so although this is a philosophy class he often brings in ideas from psychology and criminal justice/law that is interesting. Overall, the concepts that we covered in this class were interesting to me but I can see how they wouldn't be for some people.

This class is very reading intensive and analysis intensive-Professor Morris will provide you with his analysis of the different reading assignments but you are encouraged to come up with your own as well and even challenge his ideas in papers/exams. In regards to the reading though, one thing that annoyed me about this class is that Professor Morris requires a course reader yet the course reader only contains about half of the readings that you have to do for the class-this made it expensive to consistently keep buying novels that I had to read for the coming week. The reading I found to be really interesting though but in general I enjoy reading and liked classes like APELC in high school. Basically, if you don't like reading and analyzing, don't take this class but if you do this is the perfect class for you!

There is one midterm which is an hour is given to answer two essay questions (one is more of a short answer). The final was three hours and consisted of writing 5 essays chosen from 9 essay prompts and was cumulative.

In regards to the lectures, one thing that was frustrating is that Professor Morris really has no outline for his lectures, he just comes and speaks about the reading (no slides or anything like that) so sometimes it could be hard to organize notes when he was jumping from one point to the next. He is also on the older side which makes him very knowledgeable but sometimes causes him to repeat things during the lecture.

Overall I did enjoy this class and I had a great TA named Sabine that actually helped us understand the material and even provided us with great outlines to help with studying for the midterm and final.

Selling PHIL5 Course Reader for $20. Text me ********** or email *************

Professor Morris is a very friendly man and always encourages his students to go to office hours. He likes to lighten up the mood of the classroom by making a few jokes. He is very knowledgable and has great insight on the novels we read for class.
That being said, I struggled focusing in his class. Because he is an older man, he tends to forget things which is very understandable. He often repeats himself which can be beneficial if you were not able to write down a statement he made BUT if he says the same thing four or five times it can be very boring.
Do not get me wrong, there were times when I was very intrigued in the lectures when we focused on forgiveness(holocaust), jealousy, and guilt. But half of the time I found myself either staring at the time or falling asleep.
This class does offer ideas that challenges you to think and can be very engaging, but at the same lectures do drag because the professor repeats himself one too many times. In the end, I feel it depends on the topic/novel Professor Morris is teaching that day if the class is going to be boring or interesting.

*I am selling my course reader and all the books required for this class. My email is *************.

I'm going to echo what everyone else said about Morris because he is an incredibly insightful man with complex and interesting ideas. His passion alone for philosophy engages students, and I don't see how you could be bored by the lectures unless you really can't stand philosophy (probably if you're south campus). If you have an interest in literature and theoretics, definitely take this class.

The required reading is a lot. 2-4 works per week, but I always stay super caught up by reading weeks ahead. Luckily, even if you don't fully grasp a text his lectures are very thorough and clarify many questions I had about characters.

As someone who was used to exclusively literary analysis, writing a philosophical paper was definitely different. It's nice to really get to the bones of the works and evaluate them for philosophical quality without having to organize your essay beautifully with eloquent topic sentences.

After taking this class, I fully intend on taking more philosophy courses. Heavy reading, but definitely worth it!