Cynthia Gao

This is definitely the most interesting course I've taken at Middlebury. Professor Gao is intimidatingly smart, but incredibly down-to-earth and very passionate about the course material. She structured the course very intentionally; each week's reading assignment almost built upon the other. For example, in the first three weeks, we read an excerpt from Capital, then we read Engels, followed by Kollontai. The volume of reading was very fair. For each class (which met once a week for a three hour seminar), we had approximately 100 pages of reading, give or take. The grade is comprised of the following: five one-page reading responses of our choice, attendance and participation, leading a discussion (essentially writing one of the weekly sets of discussion questions based on the reading, and very low-key), and then the final paper, which consists of an abstract, annotated bibliography, outline, and final draft, all weighted in increasing order. Professor Gao could sometimes grade a bit harshly, but is very fair in her reasoning for doing so, and is willing to help a lot in office hours. She is very strict about deadlines, but she also does not assign much work at all, so it is reasonable. The class discussions were by far the most stimulating, exciting, and valuable I've experienced at Middlebury. Overall, cannot recommend enough.

This is definitely the most interesting course I've taken at Middlebury. Professor Gao is intimidatingly smart, but incredibly down-to-earth and very passionate about the course material. She structured the course very intentionally; each week's reading assignment almost built upon the other. For example, in the first three weeks, we …Read more

A good class if you are interested in learning more about feminism. Wish the in class portion was more than just lectures but it got better as semester went on. Readings were interesting. Weekly writing assignments but were not hard.

I enjoyed this course well enough - the content was interesting to me and I loved that all of our readings throughout the semester were primary source documents. However, every week you had to submit a reading response paper. These were graded easily (mostly on completion) but I found it a tedious task that did not contribute to my writing very much. Overall a decent class but I wished that the discussion were led in a way that moved things to a deeper level rather than just rehashing our readings

I enjoyed this course well enough - the content was interesting to me and I loved that all of our readings throughout the semester were primary source documents. However, every week you had to submit a reading response paper. These were graded easily (mostly on completion) but I found it a tedious task that did not contribute to my w …Read more