I genuinely do not understand how this class has any good reviews. Professor Hakak's lectures are incredibly unengaging and uninteresting. He's by far the least organized professor I've ever had—in drafting up the syllabus at the beginning of the year, he did not take into account the fact that we would have so many lectures cancelled due to Jewish holidays + Veteran's Day and therefore he constantly had to revise the syllabus (we got a final version of the syllabus with the complete list of readings during Week 9 which is far too late). We never really discussed the film aspect of the course in class—he only required that we watch the film adaptations of certain texts, and this was rather inconsistent. This made it difficult to keep up with the readings because we never knew what he was going to lecture on—he even had us write a paper on a story that he didn't lecture on until a week after the paper was due. I would not recommend this class to anyone in a million years, which is really unfortunate because I was really excited about this class when I first enrolled :(

Professor Hakak assigns an obscene amount of busy work and rarely talks about the readings he assigned until weeks later.

Materials cost $175 and it was a waste of money in my opinion but I'm selling all course materials for $150 obo. Email me *************

Many people would get bored by his lectures. Sure he might not be a loud talker, but when I started to pay close attention to his lectures and stories they were actually pretty interesting and taught a lot of life lessons. What he wants is for his students to learn life lessons in his class. If you do all the readings, watch all the movies, and be in touch with the TA, you're guaranteed an A. The TA does ALL the grading, but he does say that if you feel like you didn't get the grade you deserve you can go and speak to him about it. I believe there were about 3 papers, 1 in class midterm, and 1 in class final.
Selling reader for this class! I'd be glad to answer any q's you have about his class as well
E-mail me: *************

Good luck!! :)

You are assigned several readings throughout the quarter. All of the readings teach life lessons and most of them were enjoyable to read.

The format of the class is mostly lecture on the assigned readings. Sometimes prof will try to incorporate student discussion, but to do well in class taking good notes is crucial! Since there are no slides or Bruincast, attendance is also importance.
Reading is required for the class. Sometimes there are assigned readings that they have not been discussed in class, BUT you are tested on those readings on tests. Make sure you read everything. The book material costs a lot so I would look to buy from previous student if possible.

There are 3 essays of 1000 words length. Essays were not graded too harshly.

There is a midterm and a final. After the midterm, prof gave us an opportunity to gain some points back. If you attend lectures and take notes on everything he says and memorize it for tests, you will do fine.

So many of these readings/movies were sexist bullsh*t that he didn't even unpack it was just so insensitive. Such reckless teaching to give us that kind of content to study and then not even address how problematic it was. By neglecting to teach against it, he normalized rape, abuse against women, and the romanticization and sexualization of women who want to kill themselves. The TA also refused to acknowledge the blatant themes of rape in one of the books we read. For them to skim over this was astounding and disturbing.

Professor Hakak was a very good professor, albeit a bit absentminded. I would recommend this class!! I have both readers and textbook (which is all you need for the class) and will sell all three for 130! email me at ************* for more info.