Professor Clark is honestly one of the best professors I've ever had. She knows that people take this class as a GE and lecture attendances are optional, but still strongly encouraged since she uses slides that she doesn't post (unless there are emergencies happening). She is extremely knowledgeable, and is extremely friendly; class work was also really easy, just two weekly reflections. The midterm and final were cancelled when I took it and became an optional paper due to the protests, but I believe that if they weren't cancelled it would still be pretty easy. So sad to see her go- wish her the best in New York!

Professor Clark integrates a wide variety of cultural and historical knowledge into her presentations, which enhance the understanding of material she assigns us to read. She offered extra credit for going to the Hammer Museum performances and was one of the most accommodating teachers I had during the encampment, some violence, and the strikes, with clear and timely communication about changes, acknowledging the burden of the class when TAs had to go, and continuing optional lectures, which deserves my full respect. Listening to her content tapped me back into the joy of learning literature, and it brought me a new perspective in the Japanese lens, which had lots of gems I'd heard of but never sat down to find.

She changed her midterm to a paper and made the last couple weeks of the class optional. Her workload was light, with one weekly response to the reading/media, but she never posted her slides, which I understand was the incentive to go to class at the beginning, though this changes after the strikes when she used Zoom as a hybrid tool. I don't know if she'll do that next quarter.

Experienced and fair professor. Easy class. I would take again.

Professor Clark was a great professor who really helps her students. Even though Spring quarter classes were a little rocky, she quickly accommodated students and their needs. She was also a very clear lecturer and the content itself was pretty interesting. We were able to relate Japanese history to the texts and films that we watched, and there weren't really any boring memorizations of dates and names.
The class itself is a great GE. The workload is very manageable, usually one reading assignment (~10 pages) and one film (~2.5 hours) each week, and one response paper (250-300 words) each week, where you just had to choose one of the prompts about the reading/film the week of and write about it. Given that many things moved online for Spring, our midterm and final changed into a paper, and the final is optional, which was super nice. One downside might be that there aren't any lecture slides/recordings posted during normal in-person classes, but it's not a big deal.
Overall, for a chill GE, take this class! Really interesting and not hard at all.

The Professor was incredibly nice and accommodating due to the encampment and protests on campus -- she made the midterm an essay and the final optional. I enjoyed the learning about Japanese culture/history through the selection of short stories, novels, and films. Workload was incredibly manageable with one weekly 250-300 word response and mandatory discussions. Overall, I would recommend this course to anyone looking for an interesting/chill GE.

The class is very fun and the professor is very accomodating to the students. I really enjoyed all the texts and films and she made an effort to pick ones that amplified diverse perspectives.