Surveys radical social thinkers from 20th century revolutions and sociological reflections on 20th century revolutionary theory and practice. Major thinkers and practitioners that may be surveyed include Leon Trotsky, Antonio Gramsci, Mao Zedong, Rosa Luxemburg, Jose Mariategui, Lenin, Amilcar Cabral, and others. May also cover sociological theories of social change and revolution, debates on the causes and consequences of these revolutions, and implications for 21st century processes of social change.
4
UnitsOptional
Grading1, 2, 3
PasstimeUpper division only
Level LimitLetters and science
CollegeLecture
Robinson…the prof that makes people want to drop out & handles his courses like a dictator. Him & his gang of male TAs are rude, arrogant, & grade harshly with unclear parameters. I've taken 2 of his classes now. He sloppily throws together a 3hr lecture, makes you buy the overly wordy materials he writes for profit, & man-splains til you're blue.
AWFUL PPT maker. BRIGHT green background and BRIGHT yellow fonts. It's very unprofessional, lazy and difficult to look at for a long time. Extremely inconsistent fonts and text sizes (random capitalizations). PPT strains my eyes due to the intense coloring. 5 different fonts in 2 pages, ridiculous, and AI generated images.
HORRIBLE professor. He has very interesting material but teaches in block three hour classes with monotonous lectures over powerpoints. Very arbitrary criteria for the reflections that are then graded by TA's somehow even more arbitrarily. To sum it up, great material and just horrible horrible class structuring and teaching delivery.
Excellent proffesor, one of the few at Santa Barbara that actively challenges your critical thinking. His intensity can be mistakened as rudeness, as Robinson really makes it clear that he cares a lot about the content that he is teaching, and as a result, wants to make that everyone is paying attention.
One of my favorite professors I've had at UCSB. I left class shocked every night by all the crazy new things I had learned about history, the government, etc. The 3 hour classes flew by. There's weekly 1000 word reading responses, but they are pretty easy once you get used to them. Everyone should take Robinson if they get the chance!
I gave the professor 2 stars because he does not reply to emails at all. TAs great. Be prepared to write a weekly 1000-word essay, there's several guidelines on how to do them and what to avoid. - how many pages you will read "134 pages!" If you don't like reading hundreds of pages and writing a 1000-word essay a week this course is not for you.