I am not sure why this class has such a range of ratings- I thought it was pretty easy. For summer quarter, we had one 3 page essay due week 2, and after that it was all work for the final with a part due each week. This was a great class to take C sesh if you are wanting to fulfill your writing II. Not the most engaging class but some of it was pretty interesting honestly.

I honestly did not have a good experience with this class at all. I think if you are looking to satisfy the writing ll requirement, there are much better options out there. The professor is not really involved, since it is asynchronous. The lectures are not helpful because they are very repetitive and they do not really talk about anything that will actually guide or help you with the final writing assignment. I used the topic that the professor provided in syllabus for my final writing assignment since she gave us numerous of options to use, yet I was told by my TA that the topic was too broad, therefore there is a large disconnect between the TAs and professor that needs to be resolved before the creation of the syllabus. 5/10 would not recommend :(

I'm graduating this quarter and writing this review has been at the back of my mind for the longest time (let's just say this class really pissed off my inner feminist and social justice warrior). I don't know if the format has changed or the content has been updated, but based on my experience from 2 years ago here's how I felt about this class. This class tries to paint a narrative and any facts that don't fit it are simply not included. Some of the information taught in this class is outdated, and some readings were factually incorrect. Professor also lacks nuance when discussing feminism. If you want to actually learn I would recommend researching on your own or taking a different class. As a POC feminist, I regret taking this class.

This class format is weekly prerecorded lecture videos from Professor Cooney, which I believe were all recorded a couple years ago. Then there are weekly TA videos outlining research related topics- these were not that helpful honestly but they are required. Then there are 4 weekly discussion board posts of 250 words each. Those definitely take a sizable chunk of time and are a good chance to engage with other students and see opinions. There are also weekly readings. Some were pretty hefty, but honestly you don't have to read every word. As long as you get the overarching concepts, you are fine.

There are 3 assignments: One standard short summary/analysis essay, one annotated bibliography, and then the final research paper. As long as you start early enough, you should be totally fine with all of them.

The professor also hosts 2 live events, but other than that she is not involved at all in the course. It is the TA who is guiding you through everything pretty much.

Course material wise- as others have said, Professor Cooney spends the most time on Egypt and I felt like I left the class with a bit of Ancient Egypt superiority view in terms of Women in power. Just be careful with not taking her bias to heart. Other than that, the videos were usually interesting, but watching them on 2x speed is the best way to go.

I felt like I did learn about the origins of the gender power imbalance and some modern applications which I definitely appreciated. I was also really proud of my final research paper and felt I learned a lot about my topic from that experience. This class is not a super easy GE, but if you are interested in the topic, I would suggest it. Just don't expect much human interaction.

I took the class in the completely online format this past Summer. I found the lectures to be extremely interesting, but the discussion posts slightly tedious. They attempt to replicate the feel of an in-class discussion through the four required discussion posts/ replies per week, but you can tell which students are phoning it in. The material itself spends most of its time in Mesopotamia/ Egypt, which is the Professor's specialty, but it also creates a more narrow lense in terms of the regions discussed. Overall I really enjoyed the structure of working towards the final project throughout the quarter alongside learning new material. I would recommend this class to anyone who wants to learn more about women in the past and how that connects to the modern world, but if you're looking for an easy writing 2 with a light workload, this class isn't it.

I took the online version, and have mixed views of this class. I’d say it’s rather easy to do if you’re walking in with some context, and are taking this class for your major. But gosh, if you’re taking this as a GE you’re going to walk out with some heavy misperceptions.

As many have said, this professor is not entirely knowledgeable on all she covers and it seems like she only wants to talk about Ancient Egypt, since it’s her field of study. Everything outside of that felt brief and confusing, and not as all-encompassing as one would hope for “Women in Ancient Power.” A lot of things are over sensationalized and frankly some not-very-academic commentary and interpretations comprise about half of all lectures. If you’re looking for something entertaining, it might be nice. But for me personally, the broad and sensationalized material (with a severe lack of grounding) was not what I had hoped for when taking this class for my major. The papers are very specific and really, the majority of what you learn with be from independent research and from your TA. Your TA will make or break your experience.

TLDR; expect to be buddies with JSTOR and maintain a critical lens with the lecture videos.

Great class! Very interesting, it was all online. The assignments: a podcast, a digital museum exhibit, and a reflection paper were all very doable. I absolutely loved my TA, Amr. He was so helpful and gave a lot of insight to the assignments. I loved the anecdotes he told me about his experiences excavating in various countries. He was very kind and always had a smile on his face. 10/10 recommend this class with Amr as your TA!

The problem with this class is that it is mechanized in such a way that forces you to hold a certain view about women in power both in ancient and modern times. The assignments given literally ask you to explain how women are oppressed, offering no insight to the success stories of women over generations. I actually enjoyed learning about Ancient history, but I did not appreciate AT ALL the revolting bias that polluted her lectures.

Aside from this demeaning factor, Kara is a very clear explainer and a very organized teacher. Each assignment has an explicit rubric and I never really felt lost in the class. I took this course online , so I was able to put her lecture videos on 2x speed (she's incredibly slow at talking). In her videos, she often goes over the assigned readings for the week, so I never even touched one of the readings and yet was still able to participate in the discussions, citing the material and everything.

When I took the course, the grade breakdown was essentially 30% participation (just make sure you speak a lot at every group discussion, citing the lecture videos and all that), 20% for assignment 1 (video/podcast), 30% for assignment 2 (group project, online museum exhibit), 5% for assignment 3 (class reflection). The last 15% was the final, in which we just chose 4 discussion questions from the quarter, so I basically finished my final before it was even released.

Honestly, for this course, getting a good grade depends on your TA. The TA essentially drives the whole course experience for you. I had Anatolii Tokmantcev. He's incredibly smart and on top of his stuff, but he's the PICKIEST grader. I had a zoom meeting with him in which I asked him why I lost points on certain assignments, and he was clearly looking for the most nitty gritty things to take points off. So if you have him, just email him before each assignment is due and ask what he's EXACTLY looking for.

I'm not sure when it was changed, but this class is an online format, which I love because it saved me a lot of time going to and from campus. Each week, there are a couple lecture videos posted on CCLE that you have to watch (the average watch time is 1-2.5 hours). However, I always watched during meals on 2x speed so it really saved me a lot of time. The readings are kind of heavy but you just have to find time to do it before your discussion section. Also, your TA will post discussion questions for the week that you should look over before your discussion section (participation is a big part of your grade). The workload isn't too bad honestly. There are three assignments: video or podcast (20%), digital museum exhibit (30%), and final reflection paper (5%). The video was not too bad - you interview a female and try tie in what you've been talking about in class about Michael Mann's IEMP powers to someone's real life experiences and analyze that in a video. The digital museum exhibit is a lot more work because you have an individual portion and a group portion. The invidual portion is researching about a female ruler in the ancient times and finding three artifacts that represent her. The group portion is that you all have rulers in vaguely the same region and you write an essay about them (regions like Egypt, China, Greece, Mesopotamia, India). I would say to utilize TA office hours before you turn in the big assignments to check them over and make sure you did not miss anything. Also, the one quart meeting with Professor Cooney is pretty entertaining, I would recommend going. I agree with the sentiment of many other students: she does not really listen or understand your question, but rather goes on a rant (kinda), and when you get frustrated that she's not answering your questions, it's like she is like "don't worry, I know you'd get angry. But that's what I want you to do and that's how you can make change in the world"?? I'm not sure what's going on with her logic but she just blatantly does not understand students' questions so if you do ask her a question, don't take her response to heart. It sounds she's gone through some things in life so she just gives off a bitter vibe of "nothing phases me anymore" and "you women think you're making progress but you're actually not". It was kind of disheartening to hear honestly. Anyways, you don't have much interaction with her besides watching her lecture videos. I think your experience in the course is very much guided by who your TA is.

I'm writing this review around Week 9 so I don't have a grade yet, but I will update it when I get one. I wanted to point out something that I didn't see in her other reviews: Cooney straight up isn't educated about a lot of the subject material she's speaking on. She brings a lot of scientifically unsubstantiated and frankly misogynistic ideas into the course. She'll say "science shows" and then fail to provide actual scientific sources. Coming from a research background, it is also genuinely painful to see her misinterpreting the neuroscience studies that she posts.
Cooney is also not receptive to feedback—as others have pointed out, she will not listen to people who offer constructive feedback, even if it's worded in the most polite and concessive way possible. Her attitude is a bit bizarre. She always wants to challenge students that ask her questions even if it means deliberately misunderstanding them.
The one positive point to the class is that there is no midterm and final anymore, as you may see in earlier reviews, so the readings are even less important. However, the paper is super heavily weighted and there are some weird grading things. Assignments that are worth 10% of your grade are 10 points, 15% of your grade are 15 points, etc. so if you get a 9/10 on one assignment you've lost 1% of your grade. It's pretty harsh.