Erik Bleich

He has lots of enthusiasm for this class, and that is clear by his lectures and guiding of our weekly discussions. There is alot of reading each week, with a book a week, although they are all interesting so it wasn't too bad to stay on top of if you managed your time well and didn't leave it all to the last day. He has weekly quizzes to make sure that you did the reading, but they are super easy if you actually read it. The weekly discussions is the best part of the class, although you need to actually do the readings and think about them in order to get much out of the class.

He has lots of enthusiasm for this class, and that is clear by his lectures and guiding of our weekly discussions. There is alot of reading each week, with a book a week, although they are all interesting so it wasn't too bad to stay on top of if you managed your time well and didn't leave it all to the last day. He has weekly quizze …Read more

The class moves chronologically from the Hebrew Bible through Homer, Plato, Virgil, the New Testament, Beowulf, the Crusades-era sources, and Dante, and Bleich keeps the pace demanding but manageable by pairing every reading with specific passages rather than assigning whole books blind. His discussion-based teaching style works well for this material. Weekly quizzes keep everyone honest about doing the reading before class, and the student-led discussions built around circulated study questions force you to actually engage with the texts instead of coasting on secondhand summaries. He’s clearly put real thought into sequencing the syllabus so each text builds context for the next, and the journal assignments give you space to connect the readings to broader questions about Europe, identity, and your own thinking. Overall, it’s a rigorous but fair class for anyone wanting a real grounding in these texts rather than a surface-level survey.

The class moves chronologically from the Hebrew Bible through Homer, Plato, Virgil, the New Testament, Beowulf, the Crusades-era sources, and Dante, and Bleich keeps the pace demanding but manageable by pairing every reading with specific passages rather than assigning whole books blind. His discussion-based teaching style works well …Read more

This course is designed for students who are interested in reading major books but never have had the time to do so. I found myself in that group of people and took this course. We read around one book a week but they're super interesting so it doesn't really feel like homework. You definitely have to work to stay on top of readings though.