Nabokov is an interesting person, and you can tell that he clearly has a passion for the subject he teaches. My TA was Carlie, and she was an absolute gem. The workload can be a little heavy with the readings, but I found it to be manageable. This quarter, our midterm and final were take-home essays, though usually I believe the final is a two-part test with MC and short answer questions. My major criticisms of this class are the professor's lack of organization and communication with students and TAs, as well as the scope of material of the course. Throughout the quarter, the professor altered the due dates, structure and expectations for submitted work significantly (including the final), which made it stressful for TAs and students that didn't know what to expect or what to plan for. Additionally, this course was pretty history intensive, and I would've appreciated more time spent on modern-day Native Americans and Native American culture. Despite these drawbacks, I don't regret taking the course, and I do feel like I have learned more about Native American Studies.

The classes is very interesting and easy. The professor is pretty unclear and has to TA's do everything. The class is structured around guest speakers, so Nabokov just chills in the back most of the time. He made us buy an $80 course reader, which is ridiculous because all of the readings could have been posted on CCLE. Overall, I learned a lot and it was one of my favorite classes.

Ok yes if you want an easy GE then take this class because you will probably get close to 100% especially if you get a generous TA. The one problem I had with this bozo professor was his lack of communication and not even using CCLE. He honestly didn't do shit for this class (never sent an email to students or put anything on CCLE related to the class the whole quarter). His lectures were so unorganized and boring that he would just ramble about random topics in American Indian studies. I didn't mind the class, just the professor honestly sucked and was so lazy. He makes the TAs do all the work but they are all very generous and helpful. Just be prepared to not know when anything is due because the professor will send you maybe one email throughout the quarter.

I'm writing this review under WL ARTS M23 and AM IND 10, since they're the same class.

Prof. Nabokov is a great professor. Kind, empathetic, funny, and pretty knowledgable about the material. Most of the lectures aren't from him though, as he brings in special guests for nearly every lecture who are experts in the field.

Attendance isn't mandatory for lecture, but I would just go because the midterm is an essay that requires you to have a decent idea of what's going on. Attendance is more or less mandatory for the discussion, since there might be pop quizzes and you'll need to turn in homework through discussion. Missing a few is fine, but let your TA know beforehand. I HIGHLY recommend Sedna Villavencio. She was a very sweet TA, was understanding of students, and from what I heard, was one of the more generous graders.

Grading scheme is as follows:
Film Reviews (3): 30% (10% each and due in discussion, one page double-spaced MAX)
Midterm Paper: 30%
Take-Home Final: 40% (Bunch of short answer questions and matching vocabulary terms)

From what I can tell, Prof. Nabokov and the TA's want you to get an A, and all you really need to do in return is care about the material/be respectful. If you just do the work, you'll most likely get an A. Your writing doesn't need to be good, but just include all of the information they want from you, and make sure you answer all of the requirements they ask of you.

I had a lot of personal issues that prevented me from being as diligent as I would have liked, but I talked to Prof. Nabokov and my TA, and they were both very understanding, so I can definitely speak to their kindness.

Dr. Nabokov was definitely very passionate and knowledgeable about the topics. However, he was not always the one who was lecturing, so the guest lecturers he brought in varied greatly in style, topics, and lecturing ability. The class is fairly easy, the grading for the papers is pretty lenient and I was able to get away with going to about 75% of the lectures and skimming/skipping about 25% of the readings. You just needed to have enough material to work with for the final and midterms and you'll be more than okay. Overall, I didn't find the class super amazingly engaging, but it was solid overall and there were some topics within the 10 weeks I did enjoy a lot.

honestly you could get a low a or high b with very minimal work in this course. I didn’t miss a point all quarter and it wasn’t because I was working incredibly hard. the course reader is expensive and lengthy, but some of the more boring readings I completely skipped and many I skimmed— some readings were very technical or just incredibly long. Nabokov gave a few lectures, his bestie from chapman gave 4, and everyone else was a guest lecture that was an expert in their field. a lot of people never came to lecture or never read the course reader, but I wouldn’t skip both. discussion was mandatory, but most weeks it literally lasted 20 minutes or less. the work for the course was two film reviews (each took me about an hour max), a 7-page midterm paper (maybe a day’s work and mostly only because I kept putting it off), one pop quiz (that if you were alive during lecture you would have gotten full points for), and a final that consisted of 12ish short answers and a matching definitions set. The final was pretty easy; the definitions took 10 minutes, 7/12 paragraph answers I borrowed from my midterm, and the others were pretty easy to write. overall I loved the class and found it really interesting. nabokov really cares about his work and his students, he even said that his main goal was to give everyone an A. he’s funny and basically I really recommend this class.

I took this class as a GE. Nabokov only lectures a few times, and for the rest of the class, we have esteemed guest lecturers from various backgrounds. As far as content goes, this was a pretty eyeopening class. We covered Native American sovereignty, law, culture, assimilation, resistance and revitalization, art, and so on. Other reviews can go more in depth on this.

Here's all the assignments we completed this quarter:
- 2 film reviews (~1-2 pages of writing, double spaced)
- 1 essay for the midterm
- 1 paper for the final (not quite an essay -- just some descriptions and word matching)
- 1 pop quiz to check up on our readings (originally there were supposed to be 2, but it was week 7 when we were told about the quizzes and there simply wasn't enough time to have a second one)

The one thing that really bugged me was the length and cost of the course reader ($100+). You can't use an older version because the lineup of lecturers changes every quarter. I ended up borrowing the course reader every few weeks from a friend taking the class with me to stay on top of the readings. The readings tended to be super long at times (20-30+ pages a week), and in our case, you couldn't really go without the reader.

Other than that, the course was pretty easy. I went to every lecture and discussion, though you could probably skip one or two lectures if you really need to. We did get points for going to discussion. My TA (Kylie Gemmell) was super nice, occasionally giving us extra points (thanks Kylie!). Outside of class, all we had to do were the readings, 2 film reviews, and 2 papers.

Everybody else seems to write glowing reviews of this guy, but as someone who took AIS M10/WAC 23 solely for the purpose of fulfilling a GE requirement and was forced to take this class because nothing else worked with my schedule...

Definitely very passionate about American Indian Studies, but his lectures tended to be slightly unfocused because of how enthused he is. For the F11 quarter, he had a guest lecturer almost every week, and on the one hand, it introduced a lot of varying and interesting POVs, but on the other, some lecturers were very dry, others were clearly used to teaching at a graduate level and had no idea what a GE meant, and there were one or two that the TAs later told us were completely wrong in some of their points. If you want to maximize your time, skip lectures with heavy reading (particularly those about history or law, as the details are always covered in the reading excerpts) and attend those based on media, such as movies or music, or culture/cultural events, as those will be referenced later in discussion, and pictures shown during presentation may show up on the midterm/final.

The TAs made sure to get the main points of ever lecture across at discussion, however, and so long as you wrote those vocab words down you were pretty much set for the IDs/short answer sections on the tests. Study guides were provided for both the midterm and final, and the TAs made sure to emphasize a handful out of all the readings that would most benefit us to re-read. Attendance to section was almost always taken.

The midterm consisted of a response paper to a reading and a multiple-choice exam with some IDs. The TAs very unwisely decided to curve the grades by section, so when one section didn’t get a curve they rightfully argued against the other section receiving one, and so some grades were dropped substantially as a result. We received short notice of a quiz worth 15% of our grade the day before it was held, and it seemed like a good chunk of people did poorly because of how late it was announced. There were, however, a LOT of extra credit opportunities, both on and off campus.

The reader was well over $100 and close to 800 pages, cut up into two books. Obviously a lot of reading, some of which is incredibly uninteresting, and some readings (such as Native American fiction), while being engaging, won’t ever appear on a test. The guest lecturers also select the readings, so there’s a good chance that your reader won't be completely the same as next quarter's, so it’s best to buy and share a copy and split the cost rather than try to sell it off to someone later. I got a solid A in this class while skipping quite a few of the lectures (at random) or sleeping through others, not doing any extra credit whatsoever, barely participating in discussion, and writing my own study guides based off the TA’s, with no study buddies. Definitely possible to go it alone and do fine, but not doing the readings will hurt you. At least TRY to read most of them – knowing the main ones cold will definitely go a long way on the tests.

I wouldn’t really recommend this GE in particular as “fun,” though it is pretty easy overall. It is at least halfway interesting part of the time, and even if it’s really boring, the historical portions, if you can stand to stay awake through them, will be incredibly enlightening. You’ll probably at least be a bit more sensitive to Indian/Native American stereotypes that are so commonplace in everyday life, so hopefully you’ll make it out a slightly more wholesome person for your trouble.

Note: American Indian Studies M10 is also known as World Arts and Cultures M23

He is an extremely passionate and engaging professor who cares deeply about the subject matter. He was able to shed a lot of light on a topic that is not well known to many, so I felt that I truly did learn a lot about Native American culture and their complex relationship with the US. I also liked how he invited several guest speakers to come to class. The class was extremely organized and interesting, and it is definitely worth taking!

On a side note, if you are interested in buying the course readers from me, please contact me at *************. I have the new editions and their condition is like new (no markings at all) because I wanted to sell them after using them. Thanks!

*Quick note: WAC M23 is the same as Am Ind M10*

Dr. Nabokov is an amazing professor...very passionate about the subject of American Indians and really wants everyone to develop a deep appreciation for the culture. His manner of speaking is very engaging, and his many guest lecturers are truly experts in their fields, and interesting to listen to. In no way is he trying to trick you with his tests (he even tells us this), they're pretty straightforward so long as you do the reading--quite a bit I might add, but you're tested on main ideas stressed repeatedly (you're also told what you need to know, so no worries about that). The only thing was that the course reader was rather pricey; but the syllabus tells you every reading you'll have, so why not save $100+ and borrow books from the libraries on campus--Powell and YRL? (or order in advance through Interlibrary Loans?) Many of the shorter articles are online (search through the UCLA Library website); for obscure pieces not found, you can always go to the Am Ind library in Campbell for help :) . Got an A+ having done less work relative to my upper div Biochem classes, and gained insight into a unique culture. Definitely take this class with Nabokov, he's one of those rare professors truly concerned with both the subject matter, and his students. Great guy!