The relationship of art to life in sub-Saharan Africa. A cross-cultural survey of types, styles, history, and values of arts ranging from personal decoration to the state festival, stressing Ashanti, Ife, Benin, Yoruba, Cameroon.
4
UnitsOptional
Grading1, 2, 3
PasstimeNot open to freshmen
Level LimitLetters and science
CollegeLecture
Very hard to understand during lectures, and is very difficult to know what you actually need to learn. Unclear about what tests will be like and gave images for identification that he never discussed.
Going to his class is mandatory, which was difficult given how boring the content was. The midterm and "spot tests" were fairly easy, but the final essay prompt was extemely vague and hard to do, considering it has to be six pages long. Would not recommend.
Ogbechie can be confusing with what he wants from you, but his material is excellent and in other class will you learn more about pre-modern africa. I wanted to go to every class, because the art was incredible and the communities it came from I had never heard of before this class. I'm not an Art History major (1st class) and I loved this class.
Refrain from taking his classes at all cost. His tenure shows the decline of ucsb as a great institution. He changes his mind about midterms and final structures without notifying the students, and chuckles about it when the students are upset. Subject material is incredibly boring and not worth the time and headaches to figure out.
He is hard to understand and his notes make no sense. He got mad when someone asked about the midterm. The midterm had images on it that he didn't ever give us. Terrible, ew, don't take... EVER.
loved him as a person. so interesting and knows everything. his midterm was irrelevant, and he is very unclear as to what he expects from a student. disappointing grade in the end, considering i'm an art history major and went to every lecture.