Ellen Oxfeld

This course was excruciatingly boring, the lectures had no real structure, and for the most part it was unclear on what to take notes on. There was so much reading assigned every class, most of which was incomprehensible to a non-anthroplogy person. I thought this class sounded interesting based on the title, but we barely learned about different food cultures from around the world. this class also contained one short autobiography, two 5-7page essays, one 10 page essay, and two presentations, which verges on a lot for a non-CW class, also she took months to grade anything and the assignments were incredibly vague and unclear. Oxfeld was generally pretty nice, but a pretty dry lecturer. Overall this was a very boring class, and I wouldn't recommend if you want something engaging. Perhaps you would like this class if you like anthropology though.

This course was excruciatingly boring, the lectures had no real structure, and for the most part it was unclear on what to take notes on. There was so much reading assigned every class, most of which was incomprehensible to a non-anthroplogy person. I thought this class sounded interesting based on the title, but we barely learned ab …Read more

Professor Oxfeld is very passionate about what she teaches, but you may find her teaching dry at some point. This course requires constant readings since you have to read around 5 books or so and need to do comparative essays about them. Her grading is quite easy if your essays captured the essence of the readings well. Essay prompts are really open to interpretations.

Oxfeld is a nice person, but her lectures were not very engaging. Course contents were interesting, but there were too many readings assigned. Don’t take this class if you are looking for a chill experience.