I Like How Professor Roth remains objective throughout the course without letting his personal opinions hindering his teaching in any way.Enjoyed the course Very much!Highly recommend.

This course is wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. BUT, it is not well monitored, the peer review process is broken and questions are not answered, making it frustrating. For example, I wrote an essay and received a non-passing grade. I re-wrote it and submitted it. The comments back were very good, but the grade remained a non-passing one. Very difficult to figure it out. I posted a request for clarification and received no response. So, course GREAT, administration of course, not so much.

The lectures were excellent, and I really enjoyed the course... However:

the reading was always quoted at 10 minutes per week, when often the reading was much longer, and was complex ideas,so quite a slow read. Madame Bovary in 10 minutes? I don't think so. More like 10 hours.

Now I know that by writing essays the info really sticks, and the understanding is greater. But this is a part time interest for me. After two essays, I had had enough, so I just watched the lectures from that point forward.

Although I firmly believe that writing essays is a superior way to learn (vs multiple-choice tests), I think having peers review each other's work is almost worthless. For one thing, it is like "the blind leading the blind". In order to access another person's essay, you have to know more about the topic than was is featured in the lectures. This being the case, you have to specify where and how the student is going off the track. Peers can't do that. For example, several times I thought a student was wrong about some comment, but, I was not sure. Perhaps they knew more about the topic that I did, thus, rendering my impression mistaken. But I wasn't sure. So, I gave them the benefit of doubt. But, if I was right and they were wrong, then they kept their misapprehension. Not exactly, good education.

And, then sometimes, I, myself, was unsure of a point in my essay. The chances of a peer correcting it was pretty nil. Lots of peers do not have the time for lengthy commentary (their comments tend to be too brief to be of much help) and they often don't feel qualified to make negative (but tactful) corrections.

One last thing: sometimes students don't really write anything. They just input random letters or numbers. One student inputted the assignment directions instead of composing an essay. In these cases, I gave them a 0. I felt bad about that, but aren't these examples of cheating?

On a positive note; I thoroughly enjoyed the readings and the lectures. I also liked the fact that I can access a transcript (although a garbled one) and I LOVE the variable speed dial on the lectures. But, most of all, I LOVE that I can audit these courses and am very grateful to all of you who have made this possible. You have made my retirement more enjoyable. I plan on taking the second part of this course. Thank you allsoooo much.

One of the best professors i've ever come across! If the teacher is so passionate about the subject material as well as conveying the ideas, the course will be excellent. This is one of those courses.

Excellent course. The lectures were engaging and very informative and broad with the inclusion of a variety of thinkers. I also appreciated learning about the paintings of the post-modern period.

extremely informative! with both a strong historical aspect and theoretical side to the lecteurs i think it is a must for people going to further study of art, philosophy or history.

It was a fabulous journey, and brought me so much nearer to the great minds of the 18th and especially the 19th century, reading original texts, and listening to Prof Roth's wonderful interpretations.

If it is possible I would give the course 10 stars not just 5 !

I came from a very different background, I'm a pharmacist from Middle East - Egypt- where English is not my mother tongue. But this course has given me the type of knowledge I was searching for not knowing where to find it .

A very interesting to-the-point presentation for western history ... serves the different ideas in the course which covers almost the remarkable thinkers we hear about with the key ideas for them .

I think this course is a must for everyone interested in the history of modern ideas and how we became what we are .

I'm studying now part ii and looking forward to join more courses about that topic .

Special thanks for Mr.Michael S. Roth for his interesting way in lectures and mastery this topic every will.

This really is a great course. I'm an English literature academic at a British university myself, and took the course to refresh my memory about the areas covered. However, this course provided me with much more than a refresher of familiar materials. Professor Roth not only covers these areas in depth in a manner that is accessible to new comers to this area of thought, but also gives new and original insights on the material and takes the thinking into these areas. Unlike many academics, he does not treat the ideas or theories discussed as holy writ, but perspectives that themselves may be challenged. Professor Roth delivers this course with an infectious enthusiasm that is compelling.

Amazing course! Professor Roth guides you through philosophy, history, literature and art in depth but also in a simple, enjoyable way!

It took me more than seven weeks to complete the course as there were some readings to be done which were quite time-consuming and having a full-time job it wasn't always easy to devote as much time as needed to this pretty demanding course, but I enjoyed every lecture and managed to always find even the tiniest bit of time to watch the videos and complete the assignments.

It's been a great experience so far, I'm looking forward to Part 2 now!

Thank you for this course!

Professor Roth, I love your teaching style. Such course can easily be made boring, but I was excited and interested every minute of your lectures.

During last few month (luckily for me, the course is self-paced) I've read more of serious literature than during all my life.

The most resonating for me was Baudelaire and the "flâneur" aesthetics.

And, quite strangely, reading Nietzsche makes me happy :)

Thanks again to everyone, who was involved in creating this course.

The course is the equivalent of a first year survey course. However, I have two honours degrees from Canadian universities and a community college diploma and have taught for many years. In all of my educational experience I have rarely come across a professor who is as difficult to listen to or attend to than Professor Roth. He has the mannerisms of a nervous man who is thinking well ahead of what he is saying and is making up his points as he goes. He stammers perpetually and many of his sentences contain numerous repetitions and often end without completing a thought. I tried to read the transcripts of the videos instead to spare myself the aggravation of listening to him, but the transcripts are a hopeless shamble of typos, misspellings, and nonsense. Here is an example of what I mean. "Morality is an expression of power. And in the first essay of the Genealogy of Morals, which is an account of, of, of morality, you've only been assigned the second essay. In the first essay, he says, it, it, he does say that morality is an expression power but is really perverse in the west." Here is another example: “You, because society's the ultimate creditor. And a strong society is a society that can say, you know, forget about it. You know? You, you, you did something really bad, you're at Wesleyan, you get 2 points. [laugh] 4 points now, right? You just[UNKNOWN] points.”

In short the course is moderately informative and interesting but destroyed by the presentation.

I advice NOT to take this course.

Why: the professor is never there to read your assignments. He leaves that totally to other students like yourself, to grade your written assignments, and, they do not read and give you a RANDOM grade in 2 seconds.

Don't take it, you will waste sooo much time on this one.

Starting this course coincided with my having to stay at home due to a cold. I became so engrossed that staying in and studying was not only a palliative measure for cabin fever ennui but actually what I really wanted to be doing. As a result I finished the course well before its deadline. I appreciated having Professor Roth describe the perspectives of all these different thinkers so clearly, so simply, so intelligently. His enthusiasm was contagious. All the references to texts were really helpful. The course also gave me the opportunity to read texts I never normally would have done. I am already on to The Modern and the Postmodern Part II. Thank you, great experience.

Prof.Michael Roth's insight and enthusiasm sustained my interest to complete the course through the last 7 weeks. The material is engaging, the method simple and the course design is free flowing. I am convinced this will help me teach my undergraduates with a broader worldview and a better command over the subject of Modernity. I have just enrolled to Part 2 of the course. It is well worth the time and attention.

Excelete curso para entender el concepto de modernidad, para los que la historia nos apasiona este es un curso excelente para entender la historia de la filosofia y abre un gran paso para entender el mundo actual.

One of the most unique and rich in knowledge course that I've made, I recommend this course if you're into philosophy or if you want to start learning it. Writing the essay was a challenge but fun.

Thats really a fantastic course to dive in for greater understanding of the key ideas and figures of the modern and the postmodern. Goona enroll for part II as well... Very much delighted..

Fascinating journey through Enlightenment thinking, bringing poets, philosophers, scientists and painters into informative juxtaposition.