Feedback
It is hardly surprising that a variety of products and services are rated online – usually on a scale of 1 to 5, often with comments – as this feedback can be eyeopening. You may be surprised to learn, however, that many colleges and universities have been asking students to similarly evaluate courses and professors for decades now. Some universities make this information public, others do not. Because UCSB does not, I have taken it upon myself to post all of my evaluations to this site. There are, in fact, many hundreds of them below. (Why doesn’t UCSB publish these ratings? To be honest, I do not know. To be even more honest, I find it frustrating that they do not.) Scroll down to start with the most recent courses or click on the list to jump down. See also frequently asked questions for info on how ratings were obtained, who administers the rating system, why some comments are unrated, and so forth.
Frequently Asked Questions
How are the ratings obtained? Each term, on the last day of class, UCSB students are asked to grade their instructors. Evaluation forms are passed out, the instructor leaves the room, and students are given the opportunity to rate the course and instructor.
Are all the ratings here in their entirety? Yes, the good, the bad, and the ungrammatical, they are all here. Every evaluation for every course I have taught at UCSB is here, in its entirety. They have not been edited in any way.
Are the ratings anonymous? Yes, students do not put their names on the evaluations. Moreover, instructors are not given access to the evaluations until after they have posted all of the grades for the course.
What exactly are students rating? Students are simply asked to “rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching.”
How do the comments work? After rating the instructor, students are given the oppurtunity to add “comments or to further explain your rating of the instructor and the course.”
How does the rating scale work? It is a five-point scale: (a) excellent, (b) very good, (c) good, (d) fair, and (e) poor. However, unlike nearly every other similar rating system in existence, at UCSB 1 is “excellent” and 5 is “poor.” To avoid confusion and bring this in line with the rest of the world, I have taken the liberty of inverting the scale, so that 5 is excellent. The “Unrated” comments (see below) are listed first, followed by the 5s, and working down from there. Averages are rounded to the first decimal (i.e. 4.77 rounds to 4.8).
Who administers the ratings & what is “ESCI”? The rating system, which is officially known as ESCI (Evaluation System for Courses and Instruction), is administered by the UCSB Office of Instructional Development. Ratings are typically refered to as “ESCI scores” or “ESCI data.”
How long has UCSB been conducting the ratings? The UCSB Office of Instructional Development began the system in the 1970s. Which leads to the next obvious question…
Why doesn’t UCSB publish these ratings? To be honest, I do not know. To be even more honest, I am frustrated that they do not. Other schools, such as Harvard University, have long made similar material, known as their Course Unit Evaluations (CUEs) available to students, who annually published the ratings and comments in their CUE Guide. In my opinion, UCSB needs to make this data public. This leads to the next question…
Are you permitted to make this information public? According to the Office of Instructional Development in 2015, “Faculty members own their individual ESCI data. ESCI data are collected as an aid to individual faculty members for use as summative feedback on their courses and instruction. As such, individual ESCI results are the property of the faculty member.” I interpret this to mean that, as my property, ESCI data is mine to do with as I see fit – including posting online.
Do other departments ask students for ratings? Yes, the ESCI program is university-wide at UCSB.
How were the ratings and comments posted online? Since the comments are all handwritten, it was necessary to have them first transcribed by a student before I posted them online.
Why are some of the comments “Unrated”? I do not know for sure, but can venture a guess. Students are in fact given two evaluation forms. The first, from the UCSB Office of Instructional Development, is a computer-read form that only asks for ratings, not comments. The second, somewhat less formal sheet from the English Department, asks for the same ratings a second time, as well as for comments. I suspect that, after doing the ratings on the more official looking form, students simply forget to do the rating again, or believe it unnecessary a second time. Since we only have the comment on those forms, I note that they are “Unrated.”
Do “Unrated” comments factor into the course average? Maybe. The average score is based on ratings from the computer-read form (mentioned in the previous answer) from the Office of Instructional Development. Because, given the above logic, I suspect that many of the students who produced “Unrated” comments on the English Department form actually provided a rating on the form for the Office of Instructional Development, their rating may well factor into the course average.
Are students only asked to evaluate the instructor? Students are also asked to “rate the overall quality of the course, including its material or content, independent of the instructor’s teaching.” However, since averaging (or listing separately) the ratings from the two questions would likely be confusing, and answers to this second question can take into account factors like quality of textbooks and AV material, I have just posted the rating of the “instructor’s teaching.” However, feedback on this second question is included here, as students are asked to “further explain your rating of both the instructor and the course” in the comments.
How do these ratings compare with RateMyProfessor.com? RateMyProfessor.com and UCSB are attempting similar evaluations. UCSB asks students to “rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”; RateMyProfessor.com evaluates the “overall quality” of a professor based on their clarity and helpfulness. Since both use a scale of 1-5, ratings should be somewhat comparable. However, because just a handful of students post ratings on RateMyProfessor.com – often only those that feel strongly about a course (either positively or negatively) – the results can potentially be skewed. In contrast, because every student in the class is asked by UCSB for their ratings and comments, the ESCI data provides a much larger, and potentially more accurate, sampling. There are, in fact, hundreds of reviews below.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Overall, this class was my favorite that I have taken at UCSB so far. Additionally, I believe that Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors here at UCSB. He is very passionate about the subject and extremely knowledgeable. The lectures were always interesting and the reading material were thought provoking. The course challenged my conceptions about my beliefs towards the environment and made me think more critically.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was very eye-opening, and it made me more aware about the world, not only environmentally but also socially. I enjoyed learning about environmentalism in the past since I was never aware that the movement even existed in the “older” times. Thank you. P.S. Your voice is super soothing.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class! I liked how the slides were online I also greatly enjoyed the readings. I wish that there was a follow-up class. You did an excellent job of responding to everyone’s questions with thoughtful responses. I liked how you encouraged discussions and questions. You also have a nice voice!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is extremely knowledgeable on the subject of Environmental change and climate crisis and how the environment has been perceived through time in Western thought. I highly recommend taking his course as it greatly challenges its audience to open their minds in response to our ever changing environment.
♣♣♣♣♣ I have never had a professor so devoted and enthusiastic about a subject, thank you for a great experience.
♣♣♣♣♣ I would have laughed at the idea that analyzing literature from thousands of years ago would have prompted me to consider veganism and approaching environmental issues with a more holistic knowledge. This class should be a mandatory component of getting a general education. Truly invaluable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is my favorite professor at UCSB. I have always loved to read and after taking this class, I have been able to merge my two favorite things- reading and nature (literature and the environment!). Thank you Professor, I loved it! I look forward to pursuing further the relationship we humans have with the environment.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was the first English class I’ve taken at UCSB and I loved it. Analyzing the environment via literature was something I’ve never considered before. Thank you for being such a dynamic and engaging professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ I personally believe this class has been very influential in shaping my views on the environment and a new perspective while the material has been excellent and easily understandable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor! Clearly knows his stuff in depth and is invested in environmental courses. Has a very limited knowledge of Africa, however, and I would appreciate if he refrained from generalizing about Africa in future lectures. Really great class though; opened my eyes to a lot of environmental issues that I did not know existed.
♣♣♣♣♣ Instructor is very animated, interesting, and fair in his teaching and grading. The readings are mostly interesting with some drier pieces that it would benefit going over more during lecture. Loved the class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Superb.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is such a great professor, very passionate about the material. Willing to answer student questions unrelated to material but still remained engaged.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very passionate, great guy. 10/10 100% A+
♣♣♣♣♣ This class has opened my eyes on the environment and our views today.
♣♣♣♣♣ I intentionally thought the class was going to be boring. However, I enjoyed the class and learned new info about the environment. Fun class, great instructor, and lots of great info. Thank you K.H!
♣♣♣♣♣ Fun, great lecturer. I avoided my English GE all five years at UCSB but I must say this class was bearable. I don’t enjoy English classes, but I enjoyed this course. Professor knows how to lecture and keep students engaged. But at times it was hard to pay attention since it’s an hour and forty-five minutes long. I think it would b e best if he wore a microphone because if you sit all the way in the back it can be hard to hear at times.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course is really interesting! One of my favorite professors at UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a great instructor and if you have some interest in literature and climate change, then this course offers an interesting an interesting new perspective.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting. Great intro and all encompassing course for Lit. and the environment specializations. Liked very much that the “section” time was included into the lecture. Rather than having separate fifty minute sections with a T.A. Made things more convenient. Would have to cover some Clare poems, such as “The Lament of Swardy Well” thought it would have made an interesting contribution to other readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is obviously passionate about the course topic and teaches very efficiently.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting subject matter. Important info, enthusiastic teaching methods. Encourages a lot of discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ Enthusiastic about course material.
♣♣♣♣♣ Good instruction, answers questions very well and brought up interesting points I never thought about before.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner made the class somewhat interesting with his extensive knowledge and good delivery, but the subject of the course itself was quite boring and the readings were awful.
♣♣♣♣♣ I do not like how everything we read is somehow connected to the environment, although that is what the course is about.
♣♣♣♣♣ The readings were a little dense and hard to get through at times. Although the lectures were interesting and made the understanding of the topics easier.
♣♣♣♣♣ Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this course (the information presented and especially the means by which the professor presented the information.) The professor facilitated class discussion, which I really appreciated, as I found it easy to discuss my thoughts and delve deep into the useful material/information.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent course, thought provoking
♣♣♣♣♣ Very passionate, made material interesting. Definitely made an impact on my views and actions
♣♣♣♣♣ Great/informative class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Awesome!
♣♣♣♣♣ One of my favorite professors at UCSB!
♣♣♣♣♣ Best professor I’ve had!
♣♣♣♣♣ Passionate and knowledgeable. Knows everyone’s name.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course. If this class is any indication of how future classes at UCSB will be like, I know I’m going to have a great education.
♣♣♣♣♣ Two hour course is a bit long. Perhaps three fifty-minute class sessions would be better.
♣♣♣♣♣ Nice teacher.
♣♣♣♣♣ Not much to complain about, but lectures can be a lit monotone and drag on. Overall, an easy, fair class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, great enthusiasm, no weaknesses. Thank you, Professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, but I find it extremely ironic that the reader was a massive waste of paper.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really interesting variety of texts covered. Liked the online assignment format, lectures were always engaging.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very great teacher. Very passionate about the material and it made the experience great. The material was very interesting and will recommend this class/professor to my peers.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting, thought provoking material/lectures. I wish Prof. Hiltner would leave the slides up longer/go slower.
♣♣♣♣♣ Informative lectures, good choice of readings. Overall, great.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wish I could’ve attended all lectures.
♣♣♣♣ I generally liked the course, some material felt repetitive in my opinion.
♣♣♣♣ Really great material, made me see things in a new light. My only complaint would be the online sections. I didn’t really get anything from them, they seemed more like busy work. Would have preferred discussion section to talk about material.
♣♣♣♣ Interesting approach to unexpected works. Some I found not as relevant as others.
♣♣♣♣ Nice.
♣♣♣♣ Very long class.
♣♣♣♣ Interesting topic and lecturer.
♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner’s lectures were insightful though some of the readings less than interesting or enlightening.
♣♣♣♣ Easy class to understand environmental issues.
♣♣♣♣ Sometimes went through lecture slides too quickly to read them/write everything down, but great class and great professor other than that : )
♣♣♣♣ Yeet.
♣♣♣♣ Lectures had a plethora of information that was dictated efficiently and magnificently by Professor Hiltner.
♣♣♣♣ Topics are interesting, lectures are a little slow, but still work well. I would prefer the class in a MWF 1 hour or MW 1 hour, F 2 hour type format. Wish more of class would participate.
♣♣♣♣ I respect this guy so much for making an easy class. It really is a good way to promote intrinsic motivation and interest in the subject. It’s a little boring at times though because lectures go pretty slow.
♣♣♣♣ I found that the course focused too much on the pastoral, and the periods before the 18th century. It would be nice to have read some contemporary literature. Otherwise I found Professor Hiltner to be very engaging, and I enjoyed class immensely.
♣♣♣♣ Great professor. Loved the material
♣♣♣♣ Ken is a good lecturer, although sometimes boring. The class is overall worth taking
♣♣♣ Presentation pace varies wildly.
♣♣♣ Good professor, if a tad dull. Rather dry worse material. Fair exams and grading procedures.
Unrated Amazing lecturer. Ken Hiltner is extremely passionate and knowledgeable and presents the material in a way that’s interesting and engaging. I appreciate all that I have gained from this course. P.S. great readings.
Unrated I absolutely loved this class! As a biology major I was worried this class was going to be boring and dry, but it was just the opposite. The material was interesting and the way the material was presented made me excited to learn. Professor Hiltner is a great lecturer and I thoroughly enjoyed the class!
Unrated Really liked how available you were to see me and work things out about my grade. Topics of the class were interesting to listen to.
Unrated, It was very long. Cut back the time or the section.
Unrated Great class, however, professor is monotone and the class can get boring.
Seminar for Introduction to Literature and the Environment
Seminar course for a select number of students enrolled in English 22 designed to enrich the large lecture experience for the motivated student. Course includes either supplementary reading or more intensive study of the English 22 reading list, as well as supplemental writing.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent course, very engaging, would love to do more research with Ken and take an upper division course that explores more. Also please coordinate with the Environmental Science Department, this would make an excellent E.S. class and would have huge impacts on E.S. majors.
♣♣♣♣♣ Fascinating course, and section discussions allowed for further discussion of topics and texts.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great seminar. Ken has immense knowledge in everything environmental and gives you a whole new English-based perspective on environmental issues.
♣♣♣♣♣ Extremely knowledgeable and engaging.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is a lovely soul.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very enthusiastic about the topic, but also very opinionated.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very amenable and reasonable. As long as you do the expected reading, the course goes smoothly.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner made class interesting and relevant every time. It was a pleasure to learn from him!
♣♣♣♣♣ I think the pastoral took up too much space. Would have been nice to look into something like dystopian novels. A little theory would have been nice too.
♣♣♣♣ Mr. Hiltner is an excellent professor who is very easy to talk to. He is eager to help his students understand the information given. Great class.
♣♣♣♣ Lectures are a little long, not his fault, but would help to have either a five minute break or a relevant clip, song, art piece, or pop culture reference. I thought the section was phenomenal though, he really lets us just run with our ideas and is very encouraging.
♣♣♣♣ The seminar helps me understand the concepts better. It is also nice to get to discuss after a large lecture.
Theories of Literature and the Environment
Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and “green” criticism (especially in the UK), is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. In the first half of this course we will explore how the relationship between human beings and the environment has been imagined in the West, especially as it appears in the works of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Levinas, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, and Agamben. Withal, we will be considering how these attitudes toward the environment influenced writers such as Theocritus, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and so forth. The second half of the course will consider works from modern ecocritics (beginning in the 1960s and ’70s with Lynn White Jr., Leo Marx, Carolyn Merchant, Keith Thomas, and Raymond Williams, and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century) with an eye to directly applying this theory to the reading of texts.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Great intro to the field and Ken was extremely knowledgeable and accessible. Very glad I took this course during my grad career here. Perhaps a few less readings, just because there were some that got cut off- maybe more of a representative sampling?
♣♣♣♣♣ This is my first time to study about the Environmental critique, Ken’s explanation on them are very helpful for me to get knowledge about them. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Completely amazed with Professor Hiltner’s breadth of knowledge and ability to further develop every comment or insight provided. Course was a bit daunting at times but very informative.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent command of the ecocritical landscape and of the history of literary criticism. Thoughtful, truly integrates student observation into his own responses. All in all a very generous scholar.
♣♣♣♣ Excellent course – great readings and discussion. In the future, I would want fewer readings (mainly to give us time to thoroughly discuss all of them, rather than rushing through them during class) and slightly more organization/structure to the lectures/discussions. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣ The breadth and scope and organization of this course make it very exciting, and Dr. Hiltner is a supportive and at times awe-inspiring seminar leader, but depth was unfortunately sacrificed for mastery. The best version of this course, I believe, would cut the reading load by one third, and demand more engagement with individual readings.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Honestly, a perfect class. No negative opinions that I can think of right now. Lectures and information are simple & complex, but effectively taught so easy to understand. Appreciate the availability of course materials online.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class! I really enjoyed the readings and breaking them down in environmental terms in context was something new and very interesting. I will recommend this class to my friends for sure.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is great. Loved this class! Very interesting, and glad to say I picked up knowledge that I will be glad to keep forever.
♣♣♣♣♣ Enjoyable and informative lectures. I only wish there was a Gauchospace page to keep the syllabus and essay prompts organized!
♣♣♣♣♣ Lots of writing on slides, great topics. Summer is rushed but went through everything well! Enjoyed videos/music on lectures. Encouraging critical thinking is great as well.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner was a very good Professor! He was always prepared and went in depth about environmental issues and how literature reflects our world today! 🙂 Thanks for a wonderful session.
♣♣♣♣♣ Exceptional professor. One of the best I’ve had.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent teaching style. In depth analysis of readings. Very thought provoking, made me think in new ways about literature + environmental problems. Super caring about students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thoroughly enjoyed the class. I thought a lot of slides might be a bit redundant, yet they were all full of knowledge and new perspectives of the literary/environmental world.
♣♣♣♣♣ Maybe have less house-based poetry. They kind of repeated a lot, and he didn’t go over them in sufficient depth & the differences to be meaningful.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great and kind professor. Learned much about how humans impact the environment. Very organized.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is very passionate about his course subject and students. He breaks down broad-ranging and complicated topics involving literature as a lens for eco-criticism and makes it accessible to us. He’s also very thoughtful and easy to approach with comments or concerns.
♣♣♣♣ Excellent class! One critique — maybe assign the documentaries for homework so we can spend more time discussing them in class. Otherwise, thoroughly enjoyed it!
♣♣♣ Material complemented each other nicely. Well-rounded and varied topics. Instructor is monotone, has wordy lecture slides.
Unrated, Interesting, straight-forward class. Introduced me to an entirely diff. perspective (environment) of written works. Professor Hiltner presents lectures effectively to the class + makes us think outside of the material presented (and that material itself is already something to think further about).
Unrated, The content was relatively easy to understand. I enjoyed the method of instruction. I have gained a new outlook on environmental consciousness through this class.
English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650
This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood, we will read Beowulf, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ In a course that could easily overlook issues such as gender and environmental issues, Hiltner manages to give an analysis of these areas and how they are still relevant to contemporary society. I honestly wish the class had been longer. What a wonderful teacher.
♣♣♣♣♣ I think this is an important class to take. Enjoyable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very nice man. He goes out of his way for his students (meeting with them, reading papers, etc.) Makes class easy and enjoyable. I would definitely recommend taking a course with him. 🙂
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the discussion groups the most. As a shy guy, it helped me actually get participation points.
♣♣♣♣♣ Instructions were very thorough and clear. I understood readings and themes after they were explained.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting readings and great study guides. The work is very inclusive and we delve deep into the readings which is fantastic! Ken is very approachable!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, great Professor. Thanks for making Medieval poetry interesting, Ken! You’re the best!
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent professor!
♣♣♣♣ Great take on the texts in terms of interpreting them for their environmental importance. Although, I do wish we could have analyzed texts a bit more closely and dial back just a tad on the historical context.
♣♣♣♣ Ken is a great professor and really loves the topics he teaches. He makes a somewhat dull topic very interesting!
♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is very helpful. He is very clear about his expectations and tells you how to succeed.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class! I learned so many things from an environmental perspective. The readings were a bit hard, but lectures made them very coherent and I loved how the professor carried out interesting discussions. The passion for environmental issues you have was obvious. Thank you so much. I enjoyed coming to this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I think the teaching and lectures were great, very interesting and engaging. Some of the texts were hard to get through but the lectures were very insightful. The course itself was great in context but I did not like the way it was set up with an online section because people did not take it seriously and contribute often and I felt like discussion was lost that way which could have been interesting and helped with understanding of the readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is very intelligent, insightful, and passionate. Best of all, he strives to pass these trains on to his students and succeeds. Upon looking at his C.V. and seeing his Ph.D from Harvard, I was not surprised at all.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner did a great job this quarter, his lectures were really investing and he really went into detail explaining/discussing the literary works with respect to the environment. This was truly an eye opening course and I’m glad I took it. He is very smart.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class to raise environmental consciousness for those people who show up to lecture and get to hear the class discussions. Opened my eyes to environmental issues! Thanks for a great class and life changing way to look at life. 🙂
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was incredible. The information was captivating and presented in a chronological and geographical way that explains the spread and development of environmental consciousness. The class literally changed my life, and the professor was one of the most inspiring and educational people I’ve ever met.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course itself was extremely insightful. The combination of literature and environmental effects is an effective way of communicating environmental issues.
♣♣♣♣♣ Inspirational, well-spoken teacher. He does a great job of involving students with the material, though inevitably you will determine your level of involvement. This course is insightful if you are willing to allow it to be.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very clear, explained thoroughly! I really enjoyed the material and how easy Ken laid everything out. Makes you think differently.
♣♣♣♣♣ The instructor was very helpful and learned on the subjects that he taught. The works that were in the class were very interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ The readings are sometimes hard to understand, but the lectures are great at expanding on topics and guiding the focus. Very insightful/educational class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very intelligent guy. Open to all student’s opinions. Overall good professor and well taught. Knowledgeable man!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked how the instructor would discuss with the students during lecture. It really helped me to learn a lot on the topic.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting course that revealed connections that I had never noticed between some of the most popular pieces of literature and the way we look at the environment.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really great teacher; cared about his students and very open-minded.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very knowledgeable about subject material. Lots of encouragement for participation.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is an awesome English professor with a sound understanding of the material. His course was very enjoyable & informational.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very insightful, engaging teacher. Can’t say anything bad, except I e-mailed him one time and he didn’t respond.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this course and learned so much about the environment and se the world with a new perspective. I really liked a lot of the readings that were assigned.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class and its material. I also loved that Ken showed us other opportunities – both which we could further explore and deepen our interests in the environment. I also really loved that he provided a lot of connections back to his other works and comparisons, which really helped provide me a deeper, fuller understanding of both his class and his teachings. Definitely take this class!!!
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was very impacting and well constructed with the use of powerful readings and films. This course not only educated me as a person but also changed me. 🙂
♣♣♣♣♣ Instructor – approachable, articulate and knowledgeable. Use of slides is great and helpful – organized.
♣♣♣♣♣ This instructor gave interesting and insightful lectures. He communicated the material very clearly, and encouraged meaningful class discussion. The required reading material is fascinating and diverse.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent organization and composition of course. I loved all the reading elections and how they wove together. The discussion integrated into lecture was always interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thanks for the awesome quarter. This is a great class and I hope the literature and the environment courses continue to develop and grow. Ken Hiltner is truly an amazing professor. I recumbent his classes to all students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wish the sections were a little more structured, but the texts presented in the reader were very insightful and the lectures definitely helped in developing the major concepts of the course. Really enjoyable overall, and a new perspective of the environment and literature was achieved.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is an excellent professor. He is very passionate about the subject and knows it very well.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a fantastic course. As an environmental studies major I feel like I have gained a vital understanding of my discipline’s foundation that I hadn’t even realized I was missing.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was great and one of the few classes that has really opened my eyes. I know this class will make me think in new ways when I take courses here at UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting material, taught well + enthusiastically.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very organized lectures; loved that the slides were online!
♣♣♣♣♣ I’m still not convinced historical literature helps understand current environmental problems.
♣♣♣♣♣ This has been very informative, however readings can be a bit dry at times.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner, you are a great professor. Thank you.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, but the two hour lecture format is a bit grueling. I would have preferred a 75 minute lecture 3 times a week or something. Otherwise, great.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner presents thought-provoking arguments about our environment through important, classical pieces of literature and media. Great, inspirational lectures!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner inspired. He made me excited to attend class. I have a much better appreciate for nature because of this class. Thanks!
♣♣♣♣♣ Awesome class, love the style and organization of Professor Hiltner’s lectures. Kept interested through whole class. Some readings were very boring, often even very hard to read/understand.
♣♣♣♣♣ This should be required for all ES majors. There is little use in learning about these issues if we cannot communicate them clearly.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner was very thorough in his lectures and they were always interesting. He really cares about the students and overall it is a good course as long as you read.
♣♣♣♣♣ I have been properly exposed to essential literature.
♣♣♣♣ I liked this class, but 5-7 p.m. is way too long and it’s late so that’s why a lot of people skip. Also, please take attendance because my friend got a higher grade than me on the midterm and hasn’t come to lecture in 6 weeks.
♣♣♣♣ Very intelligent and thought provoking class. Pulled environmental allusions out of texts that didn’t seem to be environmental, which made the course extremely interesting. As an instructor, he had a great grip on the material and knew exactly what he was doing, very knowledgeable.
♣♣♣♣ The lectures were very repressive and a bit too long … would have been more effective if the were only 50 minutes, or even an hour fifteen minutes, rather than nearly 2 hours.
♣♣♣♣ A bit too monotone, maybe can sound more enthusiastic about the course lecture. Goes a bit too quickly on the slides as well. Slow down, maybe?
♣♣♣♣ I can see Professor Hiltner is really interested in the environment. Learned a lot.
♣♣♣ I liked the themes of the class, but I found some of the material a little repetitive.
♣♣ Good ideas, unnecessary emphasis on surface-level analysis. A bit repetitive and tiresome. Interesting material. Good potential.
♣♣ Lectures were a bit dull. Some of the readings were interesting. Grading was fair, but midterm was a bit confusing.
♣ Lecture much too long for surface-level discussions/lecture. Content had good potential, but wasn’t thoroughly analyzed. I felt as if the class had no depth to it. Lecture slides seemed like sentences pull straight from a very repressive essay. The same points were made over and over again with no real substance or indication of going deeper. All in all: too repetitive, too surface-level, too lengthy of a lecture time.
Unrated, Ken Hiltner is one of the best English professors that I have come across. His English 22 lectures are very interesting and thought-provoking. Having been to every lecture, I must say he makes you look forward to this course. The midterm is fair and I hope I have a chance to take his courses again in the future.
Unrated, This class definitely encouraged me to do something for the environment, to call for change. Take this class and change the world for the better.
Unrated, Great class! I definitely learned a lot!
Unrated, Discussion in lecture could be dry and boring.
Unrated, [Student-drawn picture of a tree] This is a poorly drawn tree, in honor of how great this class was!
Honors Seminar for ENG 22, Introduction to Literature and the Environment
An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 22 for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.3 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is (in my opinion) the best English Professor at UCSB. His environmental literature course has been more than successful and educational in altering my view of the way we treat the world. Thanks.
♣♣♣♣♣ Good stuff. I think more people might participate in discussion more if the focus gets narrowed a bit for each week. Maybe more specific prompting for discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner does a great job with this class, mixing environmental message with important pieces of literature. Great and though provoking class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing class, amazing instructor. It was very eye opening and influential with great content! Professor was very well read and was a splendid teacher!
♣♣♣♣♣ Content was very inserting and intriguing and applicable to course instruction was superb.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting/useful discussions.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great instructor!
♣♣♣♣ Sometimes the honors section and lecture were a bit too repetitive, but I found the content interesting and Professor Hiltner taught it well.
♣♣♣♣ I thought this course was very interesting. I read a lot of literature that I was not familiar with and enjoyed it.
♣♣♣♣ Interesting course, but sometimes ideas were a little repetitive.
♣♣ Would like to go further in-depth with given materials (good materials, but surface-level analysis and connection to main course focus and other works in class).
♣♣ Very knowledgeable and informed, but I don’t feel as if the texts were analyzed enough – he likes to hear his own voice I’ve found.
Senior Honors Seminar
This seminar provides both an introduction to literary theory as well as preparation for writing the honors thesis.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.8 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is very knowledgeable about his subject matter (and more) and it shows. Information was presented very clearly, and I was glad to have him as an instructor to provide a brochure of knowledge for my thesis. A suggestion: perhaps more structured discussions and encourage discussions between classmates.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was wonderful & Prof. Hiltner is so kind, engaging, and passionate about his work. It provided a wonderful overview of lit. theory which should be a requirement for the major!
♣♣♣♣♣ It was a great course to understand the history of Lit. & to express opinions. 🙂 Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ One of, if not the most insightful instructor I have had the opportunity to learn from at UCSB. Ken was extremely engaging but was always easy to approach and communicate with. I really learned a lot from his class and hope I am able to take another with him before I graduate.
♣♣♣♣♣ I found Ken as an advisor to be the most useful resource insofar as planning and preparing to research for my senior thesis project. Our individual meetings were always illuminating for me and I felt encouraged at every step of the process the class structure was a bit different for me. Meeting once a week to discuss really large concepts in theory — but it was very casual in a way, and it didn’t feel like a judgmental space so it was easy to share thoughts.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was excellent in providing a survey of Literary Theory. Something I had never had experience before to this extent, and I found it fascinating. Ken has also been so helpful in mentoring us on the process of beginning the Senior Thesis paper. I enjoyed this course very much and felt that it was extremely helpful. I almost wish it were continued into the senior fall quarter when we write our thesis as it provides motivation, support, and continued insight while actually writing and working on the thesis paper.
♣♣♣♣♣ I think that this class should be taught as a core requirement, or at least a general upper division open to all student. Understanding literary theory broadened my perspective on Lit. and helped inform my own understanding and opinion when approaching my Thesis. The freedom which we had with the work we produced gave me the motivation to actually take an interest in the topic. Also, the small class size and general freedom we had in discussion helped engage me as a I could genuinely contribute. It helped that Ken asked our opinion first, before interjecting his own.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is an excellent facilitator for discussion. He keeps the class interesting by providing great material to talk about and keeps the students engaged. I’ve learned so much by taking this class!
♣♣♣ I think literary theory is an important course for the English major, and a general survey of the trends and history of criticism and theory probably should be a requirement. I also think this class was very privileged by its intimate, seminar – style setting, but I would have preferred more direct engagement with the text of authors and theorists alike, rather than the mediation by another professor. I also would have preferred more argument with Professor Fry’s take on the theory, instead of just dismissing the older stuff as archaic. I did really like insights into the “academy of the future of lit theory”
Milton
In this course we will consider a range of Milton’s works, including Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials, especially The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, “His Dark Materials” is a quote from Paradise Lost.)
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Fantastic course! Really made me think about topics not normally approached in class and helped me understand such a complex author. Very organized and fair in grading & reading exception, yet open to flexibility with paper topics & class discussions. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken did an excel job teaching such a tough piece of text. I definitely liked how the text was broken up, how he provided worksheets, and group talks. Reading Paradise Lost wasn’t painful at all!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner’s class was very engaging. I enjoyed the class discussion and Prof. Hiltner’s attentiveness to his students’ input and thoughts. He is very approachable and accessible. Overall the class was very interesting and I learned so much about Milton and feel the class is a must for English majors.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner’s structure of the course and utilization of classroom participation allows students to assimilate the course material effectively. Students are given the opportunity to voice their opinions and arrive at conclusions with the Professor’s guidance.
♣♣♣♣♣ I thoroughly enjoyed taking this course with Professor Hiltner. The overall teaching style he utilized was extremely helpful for the content we covered. I would absolutely love to take another course with him.
♣♣♣♣♣ I came into this class with very little knowledge of or interest in Milton, and simply took the class because Ken hinter is a great professor. I left enjoying Milton greatly, and credit Mr. Hiltner’s great lecturing.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really admired the structure of our class. It was a supportive atmosphere and we always engaged in thought provoking class discussions. Overall, really enjoyed the class!
♣♣♣♣♣ The class was very interesting and in combination with the teaching was extremely insightful. The discussions were engaging and I found myself more into the material than I thought I would be.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great, enjoyable class. See modern day examples all the time from pop culture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting class and intuitive professor. Would recommend!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is helpful and king. And he knows the material well.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very passionate and knowledgeable about the topic. His enthusiasm makes class interesting and engages students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Splendiferous class. Well taught. Entertaining.
♣♣♣♣♣ Way more interesting and engaging that I expected it to be!
♣♣♣♣ Ken is great, very easy to understand when explaining a not-so-easy subject. 2 thumbs up!
Unrated, Great class! And great teacher. Very knowledgeable and makes the class engage in discussion.
Unrated, A fine course. Hiltner’s attempt to justify Milton’s ways to man.
English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650
This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood, we will read Beowulf, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner was a helpful and very thorough professor. He always was open to help and his class was very though-provoking and enjoyable. Thanks for everything!
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the class immensely. The only issue was the full class periods for group discussion; I found it was too much time and conversations always digressed.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is awesome. Turns a typically boring and terrible (at least to the modern ear) literature and makes it interesting. Very nice, always willing to help. Will read anything you send him in advance, which is a major plus. Highly recommend this professor to my friend. Also has a great reading voice, should do audio books.
♣♣♣♣♣ A fantastic lecturer. Very thorough, engages students, answers questions. Enjoyable discussions and detailed group work that made us think critically about the texts.
♣♣♣♣♣ The discussion sheets were a really good way to get a handle on tough material.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is awesome, funny, and crazy smart. Thank you for a badass learning experience.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this course. Professor Hiltner did a great job teaching the material, but the class is a little less structured. It’s based solely on lecture, which I enjoyed. The materials were great. I think I’m leaving the class as a much more competent English student.
♣♣♣♣♣ As a Bio major I wasn’t expecting the class to be entertaining for me but Professor Hiltner did a very good job at explaining the complicated writing in a way that made sense to me.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thank you for making this class interesting and full of new information. I learned a lot about English literature and the motives behind each authors’ writing. Hopefully you will be the instructor of one of my future English classes.
♣♣♣♣♣ When signing up for a class that included literature from Old and Middle English traditions, I was worried that the material would be difficult to understand and, quite frankly, boring. Professor Hiltner’s incredible knowledge about all the works we read and his clear, concise lecture style made the class and subsequent readings clear, interesting, & fun.
♣♣♣♣♣ Texts not very exciting, but did a great job at explaining and making easy to understand. Very detailed lectures.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner’s class made Medieval literature much more interesting than it would have been if taught by anyone else. Classes were discussion based which was helpful for collaboration with classmates, and while the material was not my primary interest. The course was not dry.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent! I loved the no-pressure feel of the class. Discussion questions were great, too! Fair midterm and final, as long as someone studies, they will do well.
♣♣♣♣♣ Fantastic Prof. Super involved. Very demanding, but fair. Good, well-taught class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is extremely knowledgeable about Medieval lit., and he made lectures and discussion enjoyable. I liked having time to discuss works in small groups before going over them as a class. Some of the reading felt like busy work since we didn’t go over all of it in class. Very fair midterm.
♣♣♣♣♣ Provided through analysis and historical context. His approach to the readings established an engaging environment.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner’s class was enjoyable because he made Medieval Literature have certain 21st-century implications. There were comparisons about race, gender, and the environment that made us think critically about the work and whether or not cultural norms have shifted.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of my top three favorite professors at UCSB – and this is my penultimate quarter. Engaging, organized, wonderful approach, and demeanor. Class is very well structured and always runs smoothly. Professor knows how to respond in a relevant, respectful manner. THANK YOU!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very approachable and insightful! The class is made in a manner that doesn’t overwhelm the student after reading such foreign texts. Two things I found helpful were the discussion groups and the individual meeting. So much more discussion happens in smaller groups and as a result more ideas are voiced.
♣♣♣♣ Overall, the class was interesting and educational. Hiltner did a good job in leading discussion and making the material relevant to the classes’ own interests.
♣♣♣♣ It may have been because it was summer, but there was a major lack of class participation. One way that you could fix this is instead of asking the vague questions, “thoughts?” or “what do you make of this?”, you could ask more specific questions like, “What makes the Wife of Bath a good character,” or, specifically refer to a single theme or event in the text.
Unrated, Prof. Hiltner was a very engaging, interesting lecturer. Despite the drab course material, he made the texts interesting by relating them to prevalent social issues and topics to relate to. He is very knowledgable and I hope to take another course by him in the future.
Senior Honors Seminar
This seminar provides both an introduction to literary theory as well as preparation for writing the honors thesis.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is an exceptional combination of interesting, helpful, and eminently knowledgeable. He is what every lecturer should aspire to be. The course, at long last, educated me on the trends and history of literary theory in a thorough and dynamic way. Every student graduating in English ought to take a course like this
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken has a great memory, is well read, and has the intelligence to utilize it. Everything he says is right. He’s easy to talk to, knows everyone in English academia, and is always willing to help. He is the kind of Professor I want to be. Also, I wish I could get through the process as quickly and as well. Ken is so cool.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was awesome! Brilliant professor and an excellent leader of discussion. Felt that my views were addressed and grappled with in class. I connected with material and was able to bring in my feminist study knowledge and see it from a new perspective. Appreciated the opportunity to have a small class and work through difficult theory. Really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Thanks Ken!!
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful approach to the material, and the instructor really engaged in explaining what we learned as well as encouraging us to bring in outside perspectives and question the authors we discussed.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was a fantastic space to discuss all aspects of how we study English. Ken is an amazing professor and genuinely cares about the and the field well-being of his students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class. I loved the material and the seminar style. It was a great way to prepare for my thesis.
♣♣♣♣♣ Honestly, when this class first started, I felt incredibly out of my depth. Though I love English and I typically get good grades, I usually thrive on creativity alone and not this kind of vivisectional thinking. Though I constantly felt inferior, I still immensely enjoyed this class. The lectures were very engaging and interesting and the professor made the readings very clear. A++++
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was excellent. Everything about it was great – the small group, the discussion, and the professor. The material was dry at times, but Professor Hiltner made it engaged.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great job and class, Ken, I really enjoyed it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my thesis.
Milton
In this course we will consider a range of Milton’s works, including Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials, especially The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, “His Dark Materials” is a quote from Paradise Lost.)
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I thoroughly enjoyed this class, the professor, and the material. I am actually upset that I won’t have the opportunity to take another class with Ken because his knowledge is truly inspiring. Studying Milton has made me want to become a better reader and writer. Please do not stop teaching this course, it should always be considered relevant.
♣♣♣♣♣ The discussion aspect of this class was awesome and allowed for much more analysis of the text. Most of the material was interesting to read – Paradise Regained 🙁 – and the exams/papers were more than fair. Amazing class and professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors at UCSB. This class is well structured and allows for engaging class discussion. Milton can be dense, but you will leave the class with at least an appreciation of his work. Great quarter!
♣♣♣♣♣ Milton is definitely a very difficult class because of content. Ken Hiltner was a great down-to-earth professor who made it easier to understand. He tries to get to know the students through interviews, which made me feel like I was his student rather than just part of his class. I really enjoyed his sense of humor – very sarcastic, but in a good way. He is also good at engaging discussion – I love how he starts off “You’re absolutely right .” It makes me feel like he really value student’s opinion. Pick Milton 162! 🙂
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best classes I’ve ever taken at UCSB. As a non-English major, I was timid about participating due to my relative lack of knowledge in this field, but the professor was very welcome to all opinions. Very good class discussions that taught me a lot about Milton, but also brought in so much extra academic discussion that was very intellectually stimulating.
♣♣♣♣♣ Second course with Hiltner, even better than the first! Milton was thoroughly looked at, analyzed, and observed in a great fashion. Paradise Lost was shown to me to be the best work ever written in the English language. Hiltner is a magnificently intelligent lecturer.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner provided everything I could possibly want from an English professor: he is passionate about the subject, incredibly knowledgeable, and has an excellent attitude. This course was rigorous and with depth, while fostering quality discussions throughout.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is by far my favorite professor at UC SB. He truly wants to see his students succeed and to get involved in the class. His helpfulness and fondness towards the students does not go unnoticed and he knows how to make everyone feel comfortable in the class by considering every point and explaining my confusion. Thank you for another great quarter Professor Hiltner!!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors I have had in my college career. He is extremely knowledgeable in both the subject and interdisciplinary arguments. He has an easy lecture form that welcomes open discussion and he makes you think about topics instead of telling you how to think. This test’s were very fair and straightforward. Highly recommended class/professor. Ken’s amazing 🙂
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is an expert on Milton and really does an excellent job leading discussions of this works. Over the quarter I definitely gained an understanding of many of the major themes this man explored in his writing. 10/10 – would take you again in the next life.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is respectful, genuine, and passionate about the literature he teaches. He’s also incredibly knowledgeable and so not only facilitates discussion effectively but enriches comments with more information. I like it when he asked follow-up questions to draw the class out.
♣♣♣♣♣ I absolutely love this class. Hiltner does an amazing job engaging the entire class and really getting you to individually think about Paradise Lost…and about life in general.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful! A great man listen to.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved the structure of the class. Normally, I hate group work, but since we were given a worksheet to discuss it, it made the class much more fun and interactive.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a great class. Professor Hiltner is great. The material was challenging and interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ Brilliantly taught with very insightful discussions.
♣♣♣♣♣ Awesome class, well-instructed, very funny and engaging professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ You freaking blew my mind with your knowledge. Much respect. So intellectual. Such English. Wow. Truly the best class I took all senior year.
♣♣♣♣♣ Always a pleasure to listen to, fair in choosing who to call on and offers constructive advice.
♣♣♣♣♣ Phenomenal class. Most excellent at gaining the somewhat esoteric Milton-ian spin on schooling your philosophy-major friends in theological debates pertaining to the broad spectrum of philosophical topics written by Milton. Also the professor is fucking awesome – point blank.
♣♣♣♣♣ I took this class on a whim and had no idea who Milton was, or that Paradise Lost is one ridiculously huge pole. I came out of the class with more impact than I ever wish I had thought. It was definitely a good decision.
♣♣♣♣♣ Small-group discussions were great, but it’s a fight to get Ken to share his personal opinion.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is obviously an expert on the subject, but I wish the lectures/discussions focused more critically on the text itself rather than broad ideas regarding themes.
English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650
This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood, we will read Beowulf, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood, which is – quite remarkably – told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I thoroughly enjoyed this class, the professor, and the material. I am actually upset that I won’t have the opportunity to take another class with Ken because his knowledge is truly inspiring. Studying Milton has made me want to become a better reader and writer. Please do not stop teaching this course, it should always be considered relevant.
♣♣♣♣♣ The discussion aspect of this class was awesome and allowed for much more analysis of the text. Most of the material was interesting to read – Paradise Regained – and the exams/papers were more than fair. Amazing class and professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors at UCSB. This class is well structured and allows for engaging class discussion. Milton can be dense, but you will leave the class with at least an appreciation of his work. Great quarter!
♣♣♣♣♣ Milton is definitely a very difficult class because of content. Ken Hiltner was a great down-to-earth professor who made it easier to understand. He tries to get to know the students through interviews, which made me feel like I was his student rather than just part of his class. I really enjoyed his sense of humor – very sarcastic, but in a good way. He is also good at engaging discussion – I love how he starts off “You’re absolutely right .” It makes me feel like he really value student’s opinion. Pick Milton 162!
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best classes I’ve ever taken at UCSB. As a non-English major, I was timid about participating due to my relative lack of knowledge in this field, but the professor was very welcome to all opinions. Very good class discussions that taught me a lot about Milton, but also brought in so much extra academic discussion that was very intellectually stimulating.
♣♣♣♣♣ Second course with Hiltner, even better than the first! Milton was thoroughly looked at, analyzed, and observed in a great fashion. Paradise Lost was shown to me to be the best work ever written in the English language. Hiltner is a magnificently intelligent lecturer.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner provided everything I could possibly want from an English professor: he is passionate about the subject, incredibly knowledgeable, and has an excellent attitude. This course was rigorous and with depth, while fostering quality discussions throughout.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is by far my favorite professor at UC SB. He truly wants to see his students succeed and to get involved in the class. His helpfulness and fondness towards the students does not go unnoticed and he knows how to make everyone feel comfortable in the class by considering every point and explaining my confusion. Thank you for another great quarter Professor Hiltner!!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors I have had in my college career. He is extremely knowledgeable in both the subject and interdisciplinary arguments. He has an easy lecture form that welcomes open discussion and he makes you think about topics instead of telling you how to think. This test’s were very fair and straightforward. Highly recommended class/professor. Ken’s amazing
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is an expert on Milton and really does an excellent job leading discussions of this works. Over the quarter I definitely gained an understanding of many of the major themes this man explored in his writing. 10/10 – would take you again in the next life.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is respectful, genuine, and passionate about the literature he teaches. He’s also incredibly knowledgeable and so not only facilitates discussion effectively but enriches comments with more information. I like it when he asked follow-up questions to draw the class out.
♣♣♣♣♣ I absolutely love this class. Hiltner does an amazing job engaging the entire class and really getting you to individually think about Paradise Lost…and about life in general.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful! A great man listen to.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved the structure of the class. Normally, I hate group work, but since we were given a worksheet to discuss it, it made the class much more fun and interactive.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a great class. Professor Hiltner is great. The material was challenging and interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ Brilliantly taught with very insightful discussions.
♣♣♣♣♣ Awesome class, well-instructed, very funny and engaging professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ You freaking blew my mind with your knowledge. Much respect. So intellectual. Such English. Wow. Truly the best class I took all senior year.
♣♣♣♣♣ Always a pleasure to listen to, fair in choosing who to call on and offers constructive advice.
♣♣♣♣♣ Phenomenal class. Most excellent at gaining the somewhat esoteric Milton-ian spin on schooling your philosophy-major friends in theological debates pertaining to the broad spectrum of philosophical topics written by Milton. Also the professor is fucking awesome – point blank.
♣♣♣♣♣ I took this class on a whim and had no idea who Milton was, or that Paradise Lost is one ridiculously huge pole. I came out of the class with more impact than I ever wish I had thought. It was definitely a good decision.
♣♣♣♣♣ Small-group discussions were great, but it’s a fight to get Ken to share his personal opinion.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is obviously an expert on the subject, but I wish the lectures/discussions focused more critically on the text itself rather than broad ideas regarding themes.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.6 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the course. The material covered was very extensive. Professor Hiltner is very knowledgeable on the subject. I felt I learned so much. The online materials were amazing and the resources available helped out so much with study.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thoroughly enjoyed this course. Material was concise and clear. Gained a whole new perspective on human interaction with the environment. Professor Hiltner is one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to
♣♣♣♣♣ LOVED the online sections, lectures, and your presentations.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thank you for such a thought-provoking and interesting class! This is an excellent class and I enjoyed it very much. One of the best lecturers ever!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great lecturer. Classes are a tad long and dry, but his lecturing skills more than makes up for it.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the course very much! Lectures were more interesting than I expected and challenged a lot of my ideas.
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very passionate, very prepared and always evoked thoughtful discussions. Highly recommended!!
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures are great, as are the Prizi presentations. Online sections worked well, but there should be another time required for students to come back and respond to peers.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor is very knowledgeable about topics. His passion is evident and he is very good at encouraging discussion from students. He also does a good job connecting with students by remembering their names.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great at going into detail. Always asked if we have questions. Very knowledgeable. Easy to talk to. Overall, a wonderful professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved this class!
♣♣♣♣♣ I appreciated that you said that everyone’s comments were “great” and that they made “great points,” even if they didn’t seem to be so. It made me more inclined to speak up.
♣♣♣♣♣ I just think that something needs to be done to promote discussion in the online sections. Otherwise, it’s perfect.
♣♣♣♣♣ The presentation of the information was great. I was always excited to come to class and I feel as though I learned a lot.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really cool! Maybe have an option to set reminders for online section posts because I would always forget.
♣♣♣♣♣ I very much enjoyed your class and would recommend it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Perhaps the formatting of the class itself could have been augmented. Sections could’ve been integrated better into lecture. Overall, I found the content inspiring and informative.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner, as an individual, is one of considerable virtue. Respecting all students and questions, being well prepared, a clear speaker, and a plethora of other traits made him a great professor to teach this invaluable course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Section was more of an assignment than discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class just needs to be more engaging. You did great, Professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ Middle English readings were extremely difficult – a reading guide would have been helpful. Also your (professor) regulation / comments on offensive blog posting from students would be nice
♣♣♣♣♣ I very much liked the content of this course. The professor was knowledgeable and experienced at this. I think you should keep Hesiod and Virgil. I agree that it provides a platform on which to understand the other concepts. I disliked the super-long poems like Upon Appleton House. I thought one sample of that type of poem was enough.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really did not enjoy the online section. I did not put in as much work and did not need to. I consistently forgot about them, and, worst of all, did not learn from them. In-person sections are much more enlightening, and I feel help the students more. Other than that, I really enjoyed this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ A little monotonous and boring, but interesting and easy to understand.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the class, but found it a little boring at times and it would be great to change it up a little throughout the quarter. Perhaps readings that are more easy-to-understand would also be beneficial.
♣♣♣♣♣ I was consistently bored to tears. But seriously, by the hour and a half, with 30 minutes to go, I would get uncomfortably bored. I understand that some students got something positive out of the course, but, I made a huge mistake taking this class.
Eng 22S, Fall 2013
Honors Seminar for ENG 22, Introduction to Literature and the Environment
An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 22 for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Dr. Hiltner is one of the best tutors I’ve had since starting university three years ago. He is patient, clear, and has the ability to help students understand complex ideas, and is just highly knowledgeable. Very interesting course with a teacher who always has time to help you.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the way this honors section was run. It was a good idea incorporating supplemental readings and if you do this next time I would recommend having them all quarter. Also, I noticed a few of my peers barely participating, so having certain students come up with questions prior to the discussion could result in more participation. Regardless of that, this was a phenomenal experience.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is an excellent teacher who is well read and extremely prepared for class. Only one of three professors who completes all nine weeks of instruction and actually has a final during finals week. His lectures are well organized and everything is accessible. He is also a most thoughtful and interactive teacher. Encourages discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner has a vast amount of knowledge, not only about the environment. On top of that, he is willing to share it with students. Quite an inspiring professor. I learned a lot and acquired an environmental consciousness. I am thankful for this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really like this class! It would be nice if there were more essays so that perhaps it could fulfill in area “G” literature requirement, but I liked the online sections and all of the material. Professor Hiltner is an excellent lecturer, but having class Monday and Wednesday nights in one hour and 45 minutes segments is a bit difficult. All in all, I am glad to have taken this course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Enlightening class. Wonderful.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the seminar, and appreciate the kindness Professor Hiltner expressed toward each student. He is so humble, and humility touches students far more than an instructor can ever comprehend. He encouraged me to continue my literature and environment specialization!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great lecture, excellent understanding of material, and maintains rapport with class well. Pacing is slightly off and the tests are structured in a confusing manner although they are not too difficult.
♣♣♣♣♣ Some of the presentations and lectures were hard for me to follow, but Professor Hiltner was very knowledgeable and approachable throughout the course. He also brought up interesting perspectives that I had not previously considered.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really good in honors section. In lecture, long-winded and almost 100% based on slides, which is nice for students but not very conducive to attending lecture. If lectures were to be cut down to, for instance, one hour and 15 minutes. After all, there are still sections, which I spent a good 50 minutes on, so it works out unit wise, even though sections are online.
♣♣♣♣♣ I think that more specific question should be asked in class. The material that we read was very rich, so was hard to get a response when asked what my thoughts were on the reading. Lectures could a bit shorter. A lot of content is introduced in one hour and 50.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting in structure, enjoyed going to lectures very much.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner takes a lot of time to answer questions and gives everyone’s thoughts equal footing. But sometimes the class drug on and it became tiring. It does not hold up to the materials that it taught sometimes. The online sections could also be improved if the students could write the questions. That would increase discussion.
English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650
This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood, we will read Beowulf, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.8 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ An absolutely brilliant course. Prof. Hiltner is one of the greatest professors that I’ve ever had. The death of his knowledge is unbelievable and he was able to answer any questions that we had. He made me interested in a period of literature that isn’t usually my favorite. He was nice, helpful, and understanding. A truly wonderful course.
♣♣♣♣♣ As somebody who is not an English major, I still found this class very enjoyable. So much so that in the fall I’m going to be looking into double majoring. Really amazing class. A tiny bit rushed, but still so good.
♣♣♣♣♣ I appreciated the midterm/final reviews in class because I know it’s much more of a privilege (since most of my professors/TAs don’t have reviews). I would have preferred to read Chaucer in translation, but I’m glad I didn’t because it gave me a feel for Chaucer style. I will be crashing your Milton course in the winter (2014) since I know it will be full before I can add it. Great professor, offers interesting views about course materials. Easy to understand! Coherently connects different works from different periods together. Best professor I’ve had it UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is an awesome teacher. He’s very clear and easy-to-understand. He tries to make us do as well as possible. He clearly is passionate about what he’s teaching. I’d take a class with him again.
♣♣♣♣♣ I am interested in medieval literature and took this class is an indication of whether I should specialize in medieval Lit. I absolutely loved this class! The lecture was always interesting and I can now say that I have at least read many of the great authors of the time. Thank you Prof. Hiltner! You’re awesome
♣♣♣♣♣ Very good professor, made a previously uninteresting topic interesting, and made the works and class not a chore, which I expected it to be. Well-run and organize class. 10/10 would take again.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very chill class. Shouts out to Donne, Milton, and Chaucer’s Pardoner. Hiltner is a delightful jolly fountain of medieval knowledge.
♣♣♣♣♣ Teacher is awesome!
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved his teaching style. His tests are not meant to trip us up at all. Overall, great teacher.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very good class. I enjoyed it a lot. Great professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor, truly interested in his lectures and students. Goes out of his way to help – easily the best English professor that I’ve had by a wide margin.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course was well-planned and Prof. Hiltner is very knowledgeable on the subject. All his lectures are relevant to the tests. I would have liked to have started with the Faerie Queene early one and I wish we had more time for the reading. However, Prof. Hiltner is very accessible is extremely helpful. Great class! Will take another with him.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course was well-organized. The daunting nature of medieval literature was made enjoyable and manageable by the professor. Very well taught and straightforward.
♣♣♣♣♣ He’s a really good teacher, but medieval literature is really boring.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is both knowledgeable and passionate about the material, making the class a great overall learning experience. I’d happily recommend his class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is a very good lecturer. He keeps the material interesting and relevant and structures the assignments very. The only issue was the pace of the course, given the amount of work and readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ I was not interested in this course, but Hiltner made material engaging. I now have a different perspective on Middle English and medieval literature.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is an excellent teacher, who goes out of his way to help his students. He breaks down the class material and answers any questions we may have. His lectures are really clear and detailed. The readings are interested and new. Thank you! Have a great summer!
♣♣♣♣♣ All the reading is tedious, but you made it somewhat interesting.
Eng/ES 386, Fall 2012 (Princeton)
Deforestation, air pollution, urban sprawl, endangered species, watershed loss, animal rights, rampant consumerism, and similar issues have been appearing as controversial in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Consequently, if we wish to better understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment and how it emerged, its literary history is an excellent place to start. Beginning with one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and ending with Rachel Carson and Michael Pollan, this course surveys the history of our relationship with our planet.
How would you describe the overall quality of the seminars? Please comment, as appropriate, on how well the instructor stimulated your curiosity and independent thinking, raised challenging questions, helped clarify course material, encouraged participation, and responded to students’ questions, opinions, and criticisms.
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was possibly the best professor I have had at Princeton. He is knowledgeable, engaging, and very appreciative of student involvement. His attitude toward the class really encouraged participation during class, and made me actually want to do the readings (which is a bit unusual for me).
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful! I loved how the class was small and created a very open and comfortable discussion setting. Professor Hiltner provided very interesting information and thought-provoking questions while encouraging us to present our own questions and comments that allowed the conversation to flow into new and exciting areas.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great! Very engaged, good mix of focus on the text and class discussion, vast majority of class was discussion, encouraged contributions, but didn’t just smile and nod at everything everyone said (as in some humanities courses I have taken, where there is no wrong answer). Always very engaged.
♣♣♣♣♣ The seminars were great. Professor Hiltner did a great job leading conversations and making everyone feel comfortable commenting. He asked stimulating questions, both in class and in the video lectures, that really enhanced the course. I always felt that my comments were welcome and this made the class discussion extremely productive.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner put a lot of effort into this course and it showed! He made video lectures and slide shows for each piece we read. They were incredibly helpful in fleshing out our understanding before precept.
♣♣♣♣♣ The seminars were very interesting, and I liked the online seminars that were posted. Ken let us go on tangents and freely discuss the texts, which was cool. As we mentioned, it might have been good to have a discussion on blackboard before the lecture, so there would be greater involvement of the class, and to make sure that people read at least some of the text. Overall, I thought Ken was a great teacher and the class was very interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ The seminars were well run. Professor Hiltner was very good at letting discussions develop while at the same time managing them and directing them.
Please comment on the overall quality of the course. What worked particularly well and in what ways might the course be improved?
♣♣♣♣♣ This was one of my favorite courses at Princeton. I learned a lot and always looked forward to class, where our class discussions were always challenging and engaging.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was one of my favorite courses at Princeton so far, and I definitely want to continue exploring my interest in the environment, possibly through other courses.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course. I didn’t do the video lectures though, although I did all of the Prezi lectures. They took far less time and there was very little information in the video lecture that wasn’t in the Prezi lecture, so I don’t think they were necessary. Loved the mix of media and the focus on discussion. While at times I would have liked more reading, the limited amount also meant that I did all or almost all of the reading every week.
♣♣♣♣♣ The way the course was set up was perfect. I would actually like it if the class met three times a week for an hour and twenty instead of just two times. That way there would be more time. I felt as though some things were a bit rushed.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course. We need more professors like Hiltner at Princeton.
Eng/ES 388, Spring 2012 (Princeton)
Environmental criticism is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. This course explores a range of works from modern environmental critics, beginning in the 1960s and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century.
How would you describe the overall quality of the seminars? Please comment, as appropriate, on how well the instructor stimulated your curiosity and independent thinking, raised challenging questions, helped clarify course material, encouraged participation, and responded to students’ questions, opinions, and criticisms.
Average rating: 4.8 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures were fascinating. Ken always raised interesting questions in class and would recall and integrate comments students made in previous lectures.
♣♣♣♣♣ I absolutely loved the seminars conducted by Prof. Hiltner. I thought he did a fantastic job of raising interesting questions about the reading, responding to students’ ideas, and guiding discussions in ways that were illuminating and facile. He was a wonderful preceptor and professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner challenged every student to come up with his/her own ideas about the readings; the class was really tailored to be only about what the students thought, which was new and exciting for me especially since this class draws students from all kinds of different disciplines.
♣♣♣♣♣ These seminars were great. Ken was a fantastic mediator of discussion and always kept us interested for the full hour and a half.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is really great and got us thinking about the Environment in ways that we hand not thought before.
♣♣♣♣♣ They were great – discussions were high quality.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very good. Rather than having every class being dry lectures about the authors and reading he made an effort to allow discussions to develop naturally.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great discussion, Prof. Hiltner seems to know everything.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner stimulated curiosity and asked good questions in the seminars. He also provided useful backgrounds to each reading/argument which really helped me understand the context the authors were writing in.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner was excellent at running his seminar discussions. I’ve rarely seen a seminar so lively, with so many people paying attention and contributing.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting and engaging, good size class.
♣♣♣♣♣ We talked about the readings in class and discussed common themes and our thoughts on them. I learned a lot but thought it would have been more useful if the professor had prepared some guidelines for our discussions and asked us specific questions about concepts, rather than just allowing us to share random thoughts. Sometimes I felt like discussions were not very stimulating and could be quite repetitive. It seemed to be the most interesting when we would talk about a controversial topic like GMO plants, and people would really begin sharing their thoughts. Also I thought that discussions significantly improved when people were not surfing the web on their computers (the last day when we all went outside to class and had no choice but to participate).
Please comment on the overall quality of the course. What worked particularly well and in what ways might the course be improved?
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was one of the best ENV classes I’ve taken at Princeton. The readings gave a lot of food for thought, and discussion was well mediated.
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought this was a great course. I enjoyed the readings, the class discussions, the essays–I cannot think of a way that I would improve it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great and interesting seminar – fascinating to approach literature and environment from secondary texts.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was great. It forced me to consider environmental issues from the humanities, which is a rare practice. The small size of the course and seminar style facilitated close discussions and allowed us to get to know the professor and our classmates.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was fantastic, and I’m so glad I took it. Thank you Prof. Hiltner for opening my eyes to a world of intriguing literature and perhaps a senior thesis topic.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked the set-up of the class. Maybe some more readings outside of the world of eco critics would have been helpful in understanding what kinds of contexts they were responding to.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is still tweaking the reading list with out feedback. Once it’s finalized, the course will be nearly perfect.
♣♣♣♣♣ I learned a lot!
♣♣♣♣♣ Some of the readings could be more applicable to real-life issues, but otherwise the Professor is great and the course is well-run.
English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650
This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood, we will read Beowulf, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ The best professor I have ever had. He cares about his students immensely and offers one-on-one time to students for help. I’ve been at UCSB for 3 years now and I have not met a professor that cares as much for his students as Professor Hiltner. I really hope he teaches another one of my classes.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best professors I have had. Truly remarkable teaching style. Makes material easy to understand and great organization. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Absolutely incredible. I am grateful for the experience. This class has simply improved my life, and I expect it to have a lasting effect.
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing professor. Very knowledgeable in more than just the points in the course. Compelling lecturer. Very on level with students in the class. A lot of works to read in such a short amount of time.
♣♣♣♣♣ An interesting class, it was definitely different than what I’ve taken before, because of the “Old” English. However, the professor was extremely helpful with questions and helping the class understand the idea. It was too much material for such a short amount of time. In case this class is taught in the future, it’d be helpful if only a couple of poems were selected.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wasn’t my favorite time period of Lit, but Ken made it really interesting. He’s very good at engaging the class and facilitating discussion. His open-mindedness approach to addressing social issues and modern relevancy was great. Would definitely take another class with him!
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting class! Made Medieval Lit enjoyable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very sweet and understanding professor. Many interesting discussions and topics in class. Assignment and discussion questions were helpful and intellectually stimulating.
♣♣♣♣♣ Appreciate his method of teaching and his passion for helping students. Also, he takes the time to meet with students individually, which more professors need to do. Enjoyed this course and wish to have more teachers like him.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course, being my first summer class, flew by very quickly. Ken was attentive to our questions as a whole and always did a great job with clarifying (and translating) a lot of our more difficult literature. He was extremely available for office hours and even went out of his way to revise term papers before their due date.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was my first English course at UCSB and I’m glad it was the last course I took. I learned a lot and was able to break across another line and make connections to other subjects through literature. Great teacher, great guy. I would encourage anyone to take a class with Hiltner.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent and comprehensive knowledge of subject and context. Made Medieval Literature interesting and intellectually stimulating!
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent professor, really enjoyed being in his class. He was enthusiastic about what he taught. Helped students whenever needed and was available to help.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great incorporation of broader themes of environment, gender, and religion. Real sense of historical context of texts and their relevance to the modern world. Will gladly take more classes with him.
♣♣♣♣♣ The professor was excellent; he by far exceeds the intelligence of most professors. It is enjoyable and easier to learn from such a learned man. He did not overcomplicate our studies and was a great speaker. I wish I could have taken another class with him.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the discussion and the class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Reading material was engaging and the teaching/ learning environment was comfortable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures were very interesting and the readings assigned were fun to read. The question worksheets were very useful.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is a very respectable professor. Summer courses are always very fast and hectic, but Hiltner provides handouts that keep the students up to date with what should be focused on.
♣♣♣♣♣ Enjoyed this course very much! Great concepts and critical thinking. Really liked how it related to today.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor; thanks for a wonderful class! Would take again.
♣♣♣♣♣ You have an awesome amount of background knowledge to offer and made the texts very interactive. There was a little too much reading for so short a time, but I understand why you included everything. Discussion questions were great!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner makes his discussions very engaging. He is quite knowledgeable about the literary works we cover and gives us various, interesting background facts that make class very easy to be interested in.
♣♣♣♣♣ He was a great instructor and really helped when questions were asked. Great job!
Unrated The class covered so much in so little time that the professor helped immensely with the connections and ideas we were supposed to see. The class framework was great as it offered many views and opinions one can draw from.
Milton and His Contemporaries
In addition to providing a comprehensive introduction to Milton’s poetry and prose, this course also covers most of the seventeenth-century works on the First Qualifying Exam for Renaissance
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent class! Love the close focus on one author!
♣♣♣♣♣ A wonderful class. Informative and interesting. He was very helpful and did a great job running the course.
Milton
In this course we will consider a range of Milton’s works, including Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials, especially The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, “His Dark Materials” is a quote from Paradise Lost.)
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.7 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course! Very engaging and interactive. The worksheets went great with lecture, which both taught complex elements in Paradise Lost.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is extremely dedicated to his teaching and has a remarkable grasp of the subject matter. He seemed genuinely concerned with each student’s progress in the course and with the material.
♣♣♣♣♣ The material was presented in an engaging fashion by explaining the life and history of Milton and the contradicting interpretation of characters like Satan. The discussions entertained the most.
♣♣♣♣♣ Enjoyable class with insightful lectures.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed having group discussions because I had the chance to participate, but without having to do so in front of the entire class. I did not actively participate in class discussions, but Professor Hiltner was able to see that I did answer questions during group sessions. I wish the professor would have lectured slightly more instead of allowing students to share their opinions/interests that absorbed valuable time. I think that if they want to engage in a deeper discussion that they should take advantage of office hours. Also, it would have been very helpful if we had been given stages for the paper to motivate me to better prepare for it.
♣♣♣♣♣ I absolutely loved this course. The professor’s lectures were informative and easy to understand. Hiltner made the course interesting and fun. The handouts and group work provided extensive opportunities for discussion and development of the text. I look forward to taking another Hiltner course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is clearly an expert in this subject. Moreover, his passion for Milton shines through in lecture and even in our small group discussions. For me, that is the most meaningful quality any professor can possess. Additionally, he shows commitment to connecting with students through office appointments planned for the start of the quarter, just to chat and get to know each other. The only thing that gave me pause was that he can be too supportive at times, in that he won’t tell a student when they are arguing something clearly untrue based on the textual evidence. This creates confusion.
♣♣♣♣♣ I did not like the group work, but loved the lecture. Very thorough teacher. Very knowledgeable. Too much of a percentage on “participation”.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class. Like the fact that Prof. Hiltner meets with every student. No better way to read Milton. 10/10, would take again!
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was really interesting and fun. Ken obviously loves teaching and was very interested in getting to know each of us and helping us succeed.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor—incredibly knowledgeable of source material, encourages original thought and discussion, goes out of his way to help students and be available for them. Loved this class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Really great course to take if you want an in-depth, fun and interesting take on Milton and Paradise Lost. I’ve already taken a class with Hiltner and hope to take one more before I graduate. He is an enthusiastic professor who takes the time to get to know and be available for his students. I enjoyed everything I got out of this class!
♣♣♣♣♣ The structure of the class was great, allowing for a lot of discussion. Ken allowed all ideas to be expressed, was great at initiating discussion, and made himself highly available both in his office and through email. Great course, great professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ As the class went on, I enjoyed it more, and I enjoyed the freedom to do a creative project. However, I felt that lecture was sometimes a waste of time when the conversation was monopolized by 3 students—especially when discussing Christianity as a religion rather than the text at hand. I will say, though, that the few times conversing with Professor Hiltner in our group was extremely helpful and enjoyable and I’d like to take another class with him!
♣♣♣♣♣ It was a very interesting class, but the professor did not do justice to the material. I have read the main book, Paradise Lost, previously, and believe Christianity for Milton was a huge part in writing it and the meaning of the world. The professor disagrees with this aspect because it seems he doesn’t believe in “The Christian Myth”.
♣♣♣♣♣ Overall very interesting class with intriguing subject matter. Paradise Lost is a great Epic Poem.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very smart and kind; open to student interpretations of the text. Willingness to listen and take into account our ideas.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed coming to class. It was always interesting and well organized.
♣♣♣♣♣ I would’ve liked to have known what the instructor thinks about the arguments made about Paradise Lost. He does provide many points of view, but I would’ve liked to hear which ones he agreed or disagreed with.
How to Read a Book
This course is a survey of literary theory.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent at facilitating classroom discussion. Very respectful of ideas.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really intelligent, great teacher. Content is both fun and stimulating. Would like to see a little more lecturing and a little less group work. Other than that, he is excellent!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great teacher; facilitates discussion well and has a thorough understanding of the subject. He is an approachable person. Sometimes lecture could seem unstructured.
♣♣♣♣♣ A really interesting class that pose unique questions to students to think about the value/ purpose of reading as well as how we perceive education. Helpful, insightful, thought-provoking!
♣♣♣♣♣ 165RD was an enjoyable class. The assigned readings and class discussions were extremely relevant.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was one of the most unique and interesting classes I’ve ever taken, and has actually shed light on why I am an English major and has made me appreciate literature so much more and the impact it has on society.
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing professor, I loved the discussion-based lecture. Always readily available to talk and is extremely approachable! A+!
♣♣♣♣♣ Class was not very structured which allowed for open discussion and discourse. Overall, very great!
♣♣♣♣♣ Loved the focus of the course. Learned to think of reading and works in an entirely new way.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was a breath of fresh air. Infinite thanks!
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent class, helpful, insightful, intelligent professor. Would definitely recommend to future students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful! Great subject for a class. Ken is funny, encouraging, on point, informative, very open and just great.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner was a great professor. Extremely helpful. He is always willing to accommodate students. Furthermore, he’s very positive and always open to student’s suggestions about the class in general, and about the different readings. Lastly, he’s very understanding. Great prof!
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is great! The set up for the class is excellent, there is always good class discussions, and the reading materials were all very interesting. Excellent professor and I’m very glad I got to take a class of his.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the most enjoyable and educational classes I’ve had at UCSB. Hiltner expertly leads discussions in class and chooses works that further the class in very illuminating ways
♣♣♣♣♣ I very much enjoyed this class, but would’ve liked more time. It was very interesting. I appreciated the freedom in paper topics. I think it was great to use texts to start discussion on contemporary events. Thank you
♣♣♣♣♣ This was an excellent class and I really enjoyed Professor Hiltner. He engaged everyone in discussion really well and made the class interesting. I like that the structure of the class was loose because it didn’t feel rushed and it left more time for in-depth discussion. Really, really enjoyed it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wouldn’t change a thing. Very talented professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the most caring and attentive professors I’ve ever had. Great at facilitating discussion and at encouraging students to speak their mind confidently.
♣♣♣♣♣ He was my favorite teacher this quarter. Actually treats us like intelligent adults. He doesn’t take attendance, which is great. Very approachable. The laidback teaching style was perfect for class intellectual conversations.
♣♣♣♣♣ Just an excellent forum for provocative and intellectual/contemporary relevant conversations. I think this would function much better as an honors seminar with less students. Great facilitator of discussion. I have to stay in touch as a tackle more “great books”. Thanks for the insight.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is brilliant and so kind. His classes are always enjoyable and I have greatly benefitted from being in his class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I think Prof. Hiltner did a great job teaching this course, especially considering that is a newly designed one. It was a welcome change from most English classes in that it was 100% discussion-oriented and that the discussions were more limited to the texts provided. If it were going to be taught again, I would get through How to Read a Book first, maybe in a few weeks, then do other readings later.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very kind and helpful. Kept class discussion going. Wide variety of readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ The syllabus is very vague and the lectures weren’t very organized. I did enjoy the readings. They were very interesting, and I would not have read them on my own.
♣♣♣♣♣ Some readings very good, while the textbook (How to Read a Book) left something to be desired. As Prof. Hiltner suggested, it could use a rewrite. Hiltner is masterful at leading in class discussions though, so they were obviously enjoyable.
Unrated I really enjoyed this class. I appreciated all of the in-class discussion. I feel that is a great way to stimulate one’s mind and learn. Thanks for picking excerpts to match the direction the class was going rather than having a set-in-stone reading list. I read to better understand myself.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.6 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ LOVED the class—great mixture of different literary works. Great how there were both movies and lectures and books to read. Introduced me to many ideas I’ve never thought about and new books to read to expand my knowledge.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the course. The grade breakdown was good and it kept every part of the course important. Tests and essay prompts were very fair. Lecture notes before class were very much appreciated—I printed them all out and kept them in a folder. I added my own comments during lecture—I’ve never been so organized!! You made a conscious effort to not read directly from the slides this quarter, but I personally would have liked more reading. The slides have really good information on them and sometimes I need to hear it out loud. I really like the movie choices and I wish we had time to see the ending of all of them. Overall, great course. Great choice for a non-English major. We were given every opportunity to learn and succeed.
♣♣♣♣♣ AMAZING! So glad I decided to take this class. Well worth it.
♣♣♣♣♣ This is a very well-structured, informative and valuable course. Ken Hiltner is a charismatic and engaging speaker whose knowledge about the topic is admirable and humbling.
♣♣♣♣♣ This is one of the best courses I’ve taken at UCSB so far. It inspired me to look at literature from a different point of view and Professor Hiltner’s lectures were always very interesting and his ideas were extremely clear. I would definitely recommend this course to my peers.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a fabulous class! Perhaps the best I’ve taken at UCSB. The material and readings were wonderful, relevant and interesting. Best part of class was Prof. Hiltner. I’ve been amazed at how thorough his knowledge is, how smart he is, and what a great lecturer he is. How he presents slides and their format is the best I’ve seen and so clear. He’s the best prof. at UCSB I’ve met. Awesome. You should give him a raise. He deserves it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class! I really enjoyed it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is hands down the best professor I have ever had! He shows extreme enthusiasm and interest in the subject material. Never before have I been so motivated to attend lecture and master the course material. I will try to take as many classes with Ken as possible. LOVE HIM!!
♣♣♣♣♣ Clear lectures, no confusion on aspects of the course, interesting lectures, give him a raise!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is an exceptional instructor. He has mastered the art of captivating his student’s attention and successfully disseminates complicated literary and environmental concepts. (The only downfall of this course was my section).
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a really great instructor and he seems to care greatly about the subject matter and the students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very enjoyable course. Great, interesting lectures. However, there was a lot of poetry that was hard to grasp.
♣♣♣♣♣ Well set-up course! I felt that I’ve learned a lot!
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought this was a great course with incredibly interesting reading. I really thought Hiltner’s ability to relate the class to our own lives was unique, as I have trouble applying some classes to real life. Essentially, he not only gave us a reason to care about doing well in the class, but how we could take such methods with us into the world after we graduate. I thought the use of modern examples was also great and kept the class interesting. He was also very accommodating and prompt in responding to emails.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the lectures. I felt that it was really helpful to print out the lectures and take notes on them while he was lecturing.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class blew my mind! Ken is a great speaker, and his lectures really made me think about how our views of the environment have been historically constructed.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures sometimes seemed to repeat the same thing over and over.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very organized and interesting class. Movies relate to topics well, and lectures are clear. I like how the slides are emailed, easier to pay attention in lecture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very eloquent and straightforward, which I appreciated. Best professor I’ve ever had, arguably. Passionate about the subject and always had interesting lectures.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thoroughly covered information and was available to speak to.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very intelligent and insightful. However, slightly arrogant and condescending.
♣♣♣♣♣ Maybe a little too much text at times on slides. Would be easier with just main points and them elaboration during lecture. Love the lecture overall, though! Very interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course was very enjoyable. Though it moved very fast, I thought the literary selections were great and the themes and topics built upon one another nicely. Personally, I felt that the midterm focused too much on small details from the readings, which didn’t test one’s understanding of course material as a whole.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was amazing. I think that it should be a required Environmental Studies class. Really gave insight into where all of the ideas/ideals I have come from, which is critical in moving forward to make changes. Thanks to Professor Hiltner; this class was really one of my favorites here at UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ Your class was excellent; I enjoyed it very much. I would have liked more analysis on the selections as a whole (themes, translations, historical context) though I know we were pressed for time as it is. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ It is nice to have such a thorough power point lectures! It is nice to have them ahead of time and study all of them.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really feel that I learned a lot in this course and it has very practical meaning. Well explained.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really good lecturer and great material. You can tell he’s super smart. Enjoyable class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Organized, concise, and interesting. Hiltner is truly brilliant. Best class I have taken in college.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting and the slides being online was very helpful for taking notes in class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor. Communicates info/material clearly and well. This class provided me with a new perception on the environment—great class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very prepared—the lectures and slides were interesting and easy to understand.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very well prepared for lecture, approachable, interesting content. Overall great class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I would have liked a faster output of essay prompts. Less reading material; I wasn’t able to focus in depth on some readings because I felt overwhelmed by the material. Loved having the lectures/slides ahead of time. It helped me to be prepared for lectures and study easier.
♣♣♣♣♣ As a non-English or Environmental Studies major, but an environmental enthusiast I thoroughly enjoyed this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ “The force is strong with this one.”
♣♣♣♣♣ The class sometimes didn’t match with the syllabus, which was at times confusing.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lecture goes fast and it is hard to keep up and process reading. Should allow more time per slide. Paper should be due earlier, rather that a few days before finals because it is dead week.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great teacher, patient, eager to teach and very knowledgeable.
♣♣♣♣♣ He always came to class with a positive attitude. He is very knowledgeable about the course. He was always available for study hours and made power points available, which were very useful. I really enjoyed this class and the readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved your class. Keep up the good work!
♣♣♣♣♣ Pretty boring and repetitive, but still interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful professor, no complaints about the course at all. Lectures were great and well-organized. My only complaint is that I never received the emails with lectures and didn’t get a response when I emailed him about it.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed his lectures and some of the course readings. I enjoyed having an English perspective to an ES major. It was new and different.
♣♣♣♣♣ Clear power points. EXCELLENT reading choices. Tests were well put together and covered all texts equally. Powerful class without directly enforcing ideas.
♣♣♣♣♣ I understand that people from previous quarters thought that he read from the slides too much, but not reading them at all wasn’t much better. I felt rushed to read before he talked. He could just read the gist of the sentences but not word for word. Otherwise, loved his teaching.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked the course and thought the professor was great. He is definitely passionate about teaching and the subject matter, which makes it more interesting and easier to learn.
♣♣♣♣♣ Probably the best lecture I have ever seen.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor was very good. Lectures were interesting and the materials covered were a good span of topics.
♣♣♣♣♣ No complaints, a little biased at times, but still good.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was extremely interesting. I loved it!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very well designed course. Every reading had a purpose. Hiltner is very intelligent and insightful. Only complaint is the awkward shift from prose to poetry after midterm. I would prefer either poetry or prose the entire course.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved this class!
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a well-structured and very interesting, informative course. I will highly recommend the course and Prof. Hiltner to other students in the major. However, I was disappointed in the discussion section, as I found the TA extremely difficult to work with, which diminished my enjoyment of the course overall.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thank you for emailing the lectures out, this really helped when reviewing them later. However, at times lectures became confusing when we focused on multiple readings or a new lecture was started at the very end of class. I also think there were much more readings after the midterm, including two books, which were all mentioned too briefly for me to get a clear grasp on them. Perhaps shortening the reader would help all and all, very clear explanations. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, very straightforward and simple. Professor Hiltner makes it easy for students to study and get good grades. The classes can be fairly simple and a little predicable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting, eye-opening course. Dry at times, but I always knew what to expect. Straightforward, thought provoking, interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting paper topics, but some of the readings dragged. Would have liked to see more focus on modern literature.
♣♣♣♣♣ Mr. Hiltner provides a vast knowledge of the subject to his students. He is passionate and conveys this to his students. Attending lecture was enjoyable and he kept me interested. Enjoyable material.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very cool guy. I like how he advocates for the environment and Occupy Wallstreet. You kick ass.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is organized, and a great lecturer. His class taught me to look at literature in a new light. Concepts were to the point and easy to understand and because of his excellent teaching style. I really enjoyed this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ditch the Middle English readings!
♣♣♣♣♣ It was a great class! Thanks for the films—they were good AND educational!
♣♣♣♣♣ The slides were excessively long. Every one had multiple paragraphs on it—an ineffective and incorrect use of power point as a teaching tool. Professor mostly repeated (sometimes 2-3x) what was written on the slides instead of expanding on them. The exams were unnecessarily detail oriented.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lecture slides should be more concise.
♣♣♣♣♣ The lecture is kind of boring, it does not really catch my attention. However, the content is interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ I wish that we had time to go into depth on source of the modern authors.
♣♣♣♣♣ Need to incorporate environment more.
♣♣♣♣♣ I have never taken a literature class before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. Overall, the professor was clear and engaging. Class seemed a little useless to an environmental studies major, but still a good one.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very passionate and thorough when covering topics. A bit difficult to get a hold of using email.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is good at supplying lecture slides, along with detailing them in lecture. His class was both interesting and fun to come to.
♣♣♣♣♣ It was good that the course comprised of many different kinds of literature that related humans to their environment rather than the modern environmental movement.
♣♣♣♣♣ The professor should engage the students more in class. He could’ve asked questions that makes the students think about the environment. Also, the professor wrote too much on the slides/presentation. He should write less and explain more without reading the material on the slides.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is good at explaining the significance of each text that we read. He is good at relating them back to themes of the class and seeing them from different perspectives as well. I like it when professors incorporate videos into their lectures. I think that Prof. Hiltner could improve by not reading off of the lecture slides and instead giving the most information through talking would better encourage class attendance.
♣♣♣♣♣ The slides were very wordy, the main point is repeated quite often. Overall, good course material, hard to make it super interesting. Thank you for your time. I am a Christian and didn’t take offense, but I do encourage you to read more modern theology.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures online/emailed out were huge help. As an ES major, the material of the course was very thought-provoking, especially your perspectives. I definitely reevaluated thoughts.
♣♣♣♣♣ I feel like compared to the other classes I’ve taken for GE’s, he isn’t grasping at “fake” ideas. He makes very good arguments.
♣♣♣♣♣ I would have liked to be more engaged with the material, because all you really did was lecture. I think that the topic was much more exciting and much more could have been done than merely power point lecture. The material was good; maybe you could present the material differently and in a variety of ways. Plus, you write essays on your slides, which can be a bit overwhelming. A lot of it is mostly repetitive.
Unrated, I loved this course! Ken did a wonderful job at historicizing our attitudes toward the environment. Really interesting stuff made really enjoyable.
Unrated, As a senior, I think this is one of the best courses I’ve ever taken. Great lecturer, uploads all classes. I usually don’t write comments but truly exceptional professor.
Unrated, The material was great, his presentations were even better! By far my favorite course at UCSB.
Unrated, Great professor: Really passionate. KNOWS HIS STUFF. I would have liked to tell him that we do appreciate him.
Unrated, Too much wording on the slides. I think it’s great that he has so much information. However, the material would stick so much more if it were bullet points and he were talking the whole time.
Honors Seminar for Engl 122EN, Introduction to Literature and the Environment
An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 122EN for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ This section was so insightful and interesting, by far my favorite class I’ve taken (and I’m already a Junior!). Professor Hiltner encouraged/made a comfortable environment for all of us to participate and engage with the text in more depth.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is an amazing lecturer, a real powerhouse. He is intelligent, articulate, approachable, and makes his subject matter accessible to his students. A+!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is great at facilitating discussion. This section really helped me further understand the themes brought up in class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Best section I have had in college so far. Ken is an extremely educated, passionate, and personable professor that truly cares about what he is teaching. This class was so well organized and informative that I recommend it to anyone else.
♣♣♣♣♣ Such a unique course offered at UCSB, definitely one of my favorites. His enthusiasm and concise understanding of the course materials makes it so much more interesting and comprehensive. One of my favorite teachers by far. Lectures are very clear and easy to understand.
♣♣♣♣♣ I have never taken an honors section before and I regret it. I was able to draw so much more from the course. Hiltner is smart, thoughtful, and considerate. I will try to take another course with him.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thank you so much for taking the time to conduct an honors section. This class was amazing and I feel the honors section really enriched my experience.
♣♣♣♣♣ The quality of discussion exceeded my expectations. Professor was extremely knowledgeable and environmentally aware.
♣♣♣♣♣ Outstanding teacher. I absolutely loved the class and course material. Never before have I been so enthusiastic about a course. Best professor at UCSB by far! Shows true passion for teaching and material.
Unrated Thanks Ken! I love being able to actively discuss the readings each week with fellow scholars and the course instructor. These kinds of academic experiences can be hard to come by at a big research university, so I am most grateful for how much I got out of this seminar.
What Else is Pastoral? Renaissance Literature and the Environment
Of all the different ways of writing, pastoral may be the most versatile–as well as most misunderstood and overlooked. Pastoral can be lighthearted fun (as in Shakespeare’s As You Like It), scathing, subversive, and dangerous political allegory (as it was for poet Edmund Spenser), astonishingly beautiful nature writing (such as the description of Eden in Milton’s Paradise Lost), or any number of other forms. In fact, pastoral can take nearly any shape: a play, a lyric poem, an epic, a novel, even a song or film. In this course we will be tracing this remarkable mode of writing from its earliest beginnings to its height in the Renaissance and 18th century, while also considering how it is still very much at work in the world today.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.8 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I love Professor Hiltner! He has such interesting ideas and I really enjoy his methods of teaching. It is also very apparent that he is really interested in what students have to say, which makes the class that much more enjoyable and makes you care more about the class too. I also really enjoyed all the material we read.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner makes this a fun and enjoyable class to be in. Honestly the pastoral is not the most interesting subject, yet I feel that this class has given me a newfound appreciation for the topic. In other words, I feel as if I actually learned something…
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved prof. Hiltner’s class! He made it the perfect safe spot to discuss topics regarding the pastoral without intimidation or judgment and if some of us were a little shy about expressing our opinions out loud in front of the class, the blog was a great way to break the ice. I find his teaching style to be quite effective!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very knowledgeable; very good slow pace of teaching, very clear; really liked the Wikipedia aspect of the course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Prof. Hiltner is a great instructor, who engages you in class discussion. He is really approachable and friendly. I liked meeting with him in the beginning of the course, gave both of us a chance to get to know each other a bit. I would definitely recommend this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful class with a great depth of material. I wish that we had time to explore more pastoral works.
♣♣♣♣♣ A pleasure to be in this class! The professor was always very informative and continually stimulated discussion. The class was wonderful and unique – very refreshing from an English student’s standpoint.
♣♣♣♣♣ I liked the variety of material that was covered – constantly felt like we were traveling to a new place and time.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class and how encouraging you were with our comments. It was a really relaxed environment where you could actually focus on/enjoy the poetry without having to memorize random facts for a final. Good teaching and class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Fun and engaging (even when I found the material not of particular interest). Glad to have ended college with this course.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this course and the readings. It may be useful in the future to provide short passages from the theory books in the readings. The Thursday presentations were helpful, but without having read any of what was being discussed, it was a little difficult to follow.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed this class because it allowed a lot of freedom and expression throughout the coursework. I felt like the reading was just right: not too much, not too little. The online blog was a great way for me to write about what I thought and Ken never made me feel inadequate about my responses. He was very supportive in his comments and genuinely cared for the well being of my learning.
♣♣♣♣♣ I liked the blog format of the class. I felt that this was a more useful means of assessment for the material covered than long essays or midterms and finals. The fact that the instructor took the time to meet with everyone in the class at least twice was really impressive – more instructors should do this!
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent class. Very interesting… very thought provoking and unique. Professor Hiltner is a brilliant instructor… Take as many classes with him as you can!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is awesome! He knows a little bit about everything. He is very helpful and I enjoyed his class. I really like that he took time to get to know everyone individually.
♣♣♣♣♣ A more categorized blog system for weekly contributions.
♣♣♣♣♣ [Comment section left blank.]
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed this class. I am a Communication major and I would recommend taking a class with prof. Hiltner because he is passionate about his work and he makes you want to take part in discussions in class. Overall, great course on pastoral literature.
♣♣♣♣♣ Love his format of the class. Very apparent how knowledgeable he was in this field.
♣♣♣♣♣ [Student asked for comments to not be posted.]
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.6 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Would have been easier to follow the movies if they had been shown on consecutive days. Paragraph style lecture slides took some getting used to. Otherwise, great class! Very interesting material. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very knowledgeable, made dense materials much more understandable. Showed the historical timeline of environmental awareness, a very intriguing pattern, I must say.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very good lectures, did everything possible to ensure students’ success.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very engaging lecture, wants his students to do well, doesn’t focus on nit-picky aspects of the class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very accessible. Well balanced between knowledge and communications.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a very interesting class and I very much enjoyed the way Professor Hiltner presented the material. He did so in a way that was easy to understand.
♣♣♣♣♣ The instructor is very patient, professional and excellent. His view is clear and the course is very interesting. I love this course very much. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ The course material was very interesting. I learned a lot from lecture and from the readings we were assigned.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class and readings were extremely interesting (except Chaucer). I really enjoyed the lectures, except they went too fast. The course opened up my mind to why we think the way we do and to the reality of our history and modern actions and thoughts. Professor Hiltner was a great lecturer!
♣♣♣♣♣ Thanks for a fun quarter! Had a good experience in this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really cares about the students and teaching. Exams are too specific. Large should be tested on vs. details.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor was bomb.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner was extraordinarily attentive to students’ involvement in the class, from constantly inviting (and addressing) questions in lecture to engaging students outside of class. Clear and thorough presentation of ideas, with willingness to incorporate new views from students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner provided an interesting, engaging and refreshing view to a lit course. He was extremely well prepared, but also welcoming to opposing comments and questions. Although I am not an English major, his structuring of the class kept me interested and engaged the whole quarter. Wonderful professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ Overall, great course with really interesting subject matter. The materials presented were a bit difficult but lecture offered insight. Very knowledgeable and eloquent professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ Of 4 years at UCSB, he is by far the best professor I’ve ever had. He’s always amazing with lectures and always keeps my attention.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the most engaging professors I have had at UCSB, never got sleep once. Makes his points incredibly clear and keeps in interesting by opening up the class to discussion. I was also amazed that he attempted to meet with everyone given the size of the class, truly cared about teaching and his students unlike many research professors at this fine institution.
♣♣♣♣♣ Dr. Hiltner should consider cage fighting. Excellent teacher – very thorough and engaging.
♣♣♣♣♣ Made a point of meeting all the students. Thorough answers to questions. Good lecture structure. Took suggestions seriously.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is an outstanding professor! He knows what he is talking about and he is really passionate about the course. He is really organized and helpful!
♣♣♣♣♣ It would be really nice to read more contemporary literature. I understand the value of looking at the past, but I think students can engage better with more current texts. Readings like Varro could have been smaller so we could read more – we’d still get the point.
♣♣♣♣♣ It was clear that professor cared about and had a great respect for the students and their ideas. The course actually succeeded in teaching me what it was meant to.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting course, great professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ I would have liked to see more material on other environmental issues in literature, such as animals or the issue of cities, etc. Maybe another class about just that?
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought this was a great class and I really learned a lot.
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought I would hate the material, but after you explain the readings in lecture, they make so much more sense and are enjoyable. He is a really good lecturer and is very clear. Answers students’ questions thoroughly. I think the lecture slides are really good for reviewing for tests, but they are kind of dense. It’s a lot to read in lecture up on the screen. Bullet points might be better. Overall, loved the class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked the class, it made my 1st quarter at UCSB enjoyable.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this course. It was very interesting. The readings, starting from the beginning of human written history all the way to recent works, gave me quite a new perspective of the environment and the way it has been portrayed. Lectures were very clean and thorough. Definitely one of the best English classes I have taken. Also, I liked being able to make my own topic for the papers. That made writing more fun!
♣♣♣♣♣ I cannot express how impressed I am with this course. Professor Hiltner is a truly exceptional professional – outstanding despite the breadth of the course. In terms of time period, he was very detailed.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great, engaging lecturer. Outlines/Powerpoints easily understandable. I really liked that he emailed us the PDF’s every week.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great range of readings. The readings and the course was structured in a logical, methodical way that developed well the ideas presented. Really appreciated the focus on New Historicism. This sort of analysis was really enjoyable to me as an English major jaded to a lot of the airy analysis and interpretation he’s used to.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor! Always well prepared and really cares about his students. Very open to discussion and always available to talk to, actually schedules appointments with all students to set feedback on improving the class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor – helpful slides, very open to student comments and questions, very fair papers and tests. Overall an enlightening class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, loved discussions. Very smart class. Did not like all the pastoral works though.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent professor, the class was much better than I thought it would be. Thought provoking and radical.
♣♣♣♣♣ A truly excellent professor. The class had great readings and the professor did a wonderful job of covering them and answering questions. His love of teaching is evident and made the course one of the most enjoyable I’ve had at UCSB. It is also clear that he cares very much for the success of his students! I loved the course and professor Hiltner!
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was my favorite this quarter. I felt it really expanded my views and I enjoyed the literature we read. Thanks!
♣♣♣♣♣ The class was very informative – topics flowed well. One fantastic article to consider for the course is Robert Sapalsky’s “The Cultural Desert”
♣♣♣♣♣ Some of the reading was difficult to understand. He explains very well.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting lectures. Diverse subject matter.
♣♣♣♣♣ I would have preferred it if he didn’t read directly off the slides but the information was clear and concise. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ I sincerely appreciate the courtesy of the instructor and his excellent ability to provide information without adding bias.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked how the class was organized and PDF’s were given every week. Professor Hiltner seems very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject. Never go to meet with him unfortunately due to schedule conflicts!
♣♣♣♣♣ I liked how we were given lecture slides in advance. It made taking notes easier and more organized. I thought his lectures were clear and thoughtful, they had good analysis and made the readings clearer.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed that were emailed lecture slides every week, but when the slides are read almost word for word, there seems little point to even come to lecture. The grading was fair and for the most part the class was interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ He was very knowledgeable and organized which made it easy to follow along during lecture. He presented in a clear manner.
♣♣♣♣♣ Good course with interesting book selection. Too much Powerpoint would be my only complaint.
♣♣♣♣♣ Class very interesting and eye opening. Would never have analyzed the readings through an environmental perspective before taking this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ The predominant focus on white, male, western thinking really bothered me.
♣♣♣♣♣ The lectures were a little too much of him reading off the Powerpoint – which I appreciated because it made it easy to study but I felt like I gained little from attending class when I could have read it myself at home. The tests were also incredibly specific I felt the essay question was graded fairly.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures were very organized. I learned a lot this quarter. Great class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures do not supplement slides. Lecture seems to be a review of information given in PDF’s. Course content was interesting.
Unrated. Super knowledgeable. Clear and well-spoken. Well prepared lectures and lecture slides. Fair tests and assignments. Only complaint is that I wish there was more in class discussion. Overall an excellent professor! One of the best I have had at UCSB.
Unrated. I really liked the material in this course and how you put lectures up in advance so we could print of out. Good choice in movies. Sometimes hard to hear you when in the back. Overall, good job!
Unrated. Professor Hiltner is a very inspiring lecturer. He thoroughly answered questions, was passionate about the subject matter, and provided interesting material and readings for the course and reader.
Unrated. It is hard to pay attention in class when the Powerpoint is read to you.
Unrated. I really enjoyed this course. I like Professor Hiltner as both a person and an instructor. He was really good at responding to students’ questions.
Unrated. Great teacher, interesting ideas.
Unrated. Great professor, answers and provokes questions.
Unrated. Great lecturer, very interesting material, interesting conclusions/interpretations of material, thought-provoking. Exams should focus more on themes and conclusions about the readings – knowing who wrote what is silly. I was hoping for more essay style themed essay exam questions.
Unrated. Great course! Interesting, clear lectures and understandable analysis of texts, even for a non-English major! Thanks!
Unrated. Excellent professor! His lectures were extremely easy to follow and were enjoyable to attend. Hiltner provides some great insight on the text we read that I wouldn’t have thought of before.
Unrated. Although I am a Math major, I found this course to be the most enlightening I’ve ever had. The teacher was very professional and reliable at the same time and the quality of the course has made an impact on me that I won’t forget.
Unrated. Absolutely extraordinary professor. I have yet to have a professor who cared enough to meet with every single student in his class until I had Professor Hiltner. Look forward to taking a class wit him again.
Honors Seminar for Engl 122EN, Introduction to Literature and the Environment
An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 122EN for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.8 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is very intelligent on subjects not only related to English literature. The honors section was enriching and a great supplement to lecture. I enjoyed the insightful discussions on topics not mentioned in class and more in-depth analysis of the readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course; had fun talking about not only the readings, but present day issues of our time. Thanks.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was extremely interesting and very well put forth. Though I would have liked to see a broader spectrum of ideas as opposed to such intense discussion on just a few.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very knowledgeable professor and interesting in the topic. Content of lectures is very good, however, the presentation style could be improved. There is too much direct reading of the Powerpoint slides in lecture. Otherwise I really enjoyed the lectures and honors section with the professor. I also appreciated readings selections which were to the point and not overwhelming.
Early Modern Limits of the Human
Cloning, organ farms, the completion of the Human Genome Project, recombinant DNA, cyborgs, artificial intelligence, and other manufactured life forms, all suggest that, depending on one’s point of view, the twenty-first century opens onto a horizon of radical possibilities for the future or cataclysmic demise of the human. Our course takes the 2009-2010 Early Modern Center Theme, “The Limits of the Human,” to turn back to the early modern period and ask: before we were posthuman, how did we become human? How do early modern representations of monsters, anomalies, race, gender, automata define what is human and separate out what is not? What innovations in technology, botany, labor equipment, law, and mathematical notation helped to calcify the boundaries of the human? How did Cartesian, Newtonian and Leibnizian systems of the world shape the conditions that Michel Foucault argues, “made it possible for the figure of man to appear?” In what ways were the “limits” always permeable and did they invite transgression and mutation? We will use this course as a forum to explore these and many other questions relevant to the historical formation of the category: human.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course material and very well organized class. Professor was extremely knowledgeable and always available for help outside of class.
♣♣♣♣♣ The professor was extremely helpful in terms of providing insightful information of the course. He was available all the time for help and showed great interest in answering students’ needs.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is the best professor at UCSB. You can really tell he knows what he’s talking about. He’s always available to talk or help with papers and encourages going to office hours which is something not many professors do. I hope to take more clases with him come Fall Quarter.
♣♣♣♣♣ Fantastic course, definitely one of my favorites I have ever taken in college. I wouldn’t change a thing. Ken is awesome and very educated and did a great job.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is very educated and very good at explaining his subject. He is an amazing teacher and really reaches out to students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thank you for all your wonderful and thought-provoking feedback. I appreciated your knowledge and the challenging questions you proposed to us. I loved the class! I hope more classes are structured like this for future students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor, friendly and knowledgeable. Made the material seem simple and made sense of the confusing idea of limits of the human.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was extremely knowledgeable and also approachable which made it easier to feel like points you had to make were welcomed and valid.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thorough, knowledgeable, cooperative, a worthy individual of his field!
♣♣♣♣♣ I appreciated his ability to make abstract/difficult concepts understood by all (especially those who are not English majors). I liked the format of the course
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is one of the best professors I have had at UCSB. His insight and willingness to work with students make his classes intriguing, challenging and amazing!
♣♣♣♣♣ The topics presented in the class were very interesting and the class as a whole was great. I enjoyed coming to class and I think this class should be offered again. As a professor you did very well, you were accessible for office hours and easy to talk to and understand. I took this class only because I enjoyed your previous one dealing with the environment.
♣♣♣♣♣ I had a lot of fun in this class. Both professors were really interested in the material and made this class very enjoyable, and the way it was structured was great.
♣♣♣♣♣ Overall great professor, really made me feel comfortable talking to him at office hours. Shortly, I appreciated how he picked up an argument from students that was well developed. It made me want to be more engaged because I didn’t feel like I was wrong or that my argument was wrong.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.6 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazingly interesting material. Great organization to the term. Highly stimulating and thought provoking. As an anti-treehugger, I’m glad I took the course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent class and teacher, a very unique subject that I definitely came to understand and love. Best part of class was Goldsworthy’s art. Critique: Too many readings, especially in the second half. Found it difficult to keep up and really get into each work.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent lectures (the best I’ve ever had). Emailing the slides in advance made them so much more beneficial.
♣♣♣♣♣ Good way to analyze nature from a different perspective.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class really made me more environmentally aware. Ken Hiltner is one of the best teachers I’ve ever had.
♣♣♣♣♣ The clarity of Professor Hiltner’s lectures is certainly unsurpassed, as his lecturing is like reading a well-written essay. Information presented clearly, though I do prefer tests that are more than 50% essay based. But it’s all good. Great turtlenecks.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great lecture style and use of PowerPoint. The emailed slides are much appreciated.
♣♣♣♣♣ I absolutely loved this class. I’m sad it’s over! The material was fascinating! Professor Hiltner did a wonderful job conveying the conditions of the environment and human attitudes through literature. I have definitely developed a strong environmental consciousness that now affects my daily actions. I only to be able to convey what I have learned to others. I am so glad that I ended my college career with such a fabulous class and instructor that will continue to impact me for hopefully the rest of my life.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the format of the class and the organization of lecture. I especially like that you simplified PowerPoint slides because I don’t have internet and I had to write a lot of it down. Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the class overall. It was interesting to read literature about the environment spanning such a lengthy timeline.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed the class. I thought it was great! The lectures were very interesting and easy to understand while being well-organized. I felt well-prepared for all exams and papers, and having the slides send around before lectures helped with studying and taking notes. Thanks, good job!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class – it has been one of my favorite English classes at UCSB. Good lecturer with good visual presentations (movies, audio, pictures). Also, I really liked that the choice of movies really pertained to our class. Thanks Professor Hiltner!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class and Professor Hiltner. The Andy Goldsworthy film and images were amazing! I also thought all the pieces were very relevant and the class flowed really well. He was a pleasure!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class, it helped open my eyes to all the destruction humans are causing the environment. I loved Professor Hiltner’s insight and his turtlenecks.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really like Professor Hiltner. The class was really interesting and he made it easy for non-English majors to follow along. I would definitely take another class with him.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked how meshed literature and controversial ecological issues are but some of the reading was just deathly boring. Maybe focus more on contemporary works next time?
♣♣♣♣♣ I truly enjoyed this class. Professor Hiltner is amazingly intelligent and a great lecturer. Emailing the lecture slides is very helpful and you still need to go to class to know everything. I absolutely loved learning about Andy Goldsworthy. Thanks so much!
♣♣♣♣♣ Incredibly insightful and thought provoking. Challenged me to consider my impact on the world.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is a great lecturer. Easy to follow, especially since I am not an English major or minor. The course made me examine literature in a way I never had before that is not only relevant to my major, but relevant to current global issues.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lecture was very organized and effective. The file and lecture outline was sometimes sent too late for students to print. But overall, great professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures well structured and easy to follow, excellent materials for the subject matter.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of my favorite courses. Professor Hiltner was one of the best lecturers I’ve ever had!
♣♣♣♣♣ One of my favorite courses. Professor Hiltner was one of the best lecturers I’ve ever had!
♣♣♣♣♣ Organized. Clear central thesis, relevant, in-depth examination of an oft-overloaded field of study. Thank you, Professor Hiltner.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner and this class were amazing. I loved the films, the way the PDF’s were done, I thought the midterm was fair, I liked the freedom given with paper topics, etc. My only critique would be how backloaded the class was with Walden and Silent Spring in the last 2 weeks – kind of an unrealistic reading load.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a great lecturer and very knowledgeable. His lectures were very interesting and engaging and the emails with the lecture slides in PDF form were extremely helpful!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner was very organized. The only thing I didn’t like was how many PDF’s there were to print out. This is supposed to be an environmental class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor, you are a great lecturer! Never a dull moment in class existed J Your reading selections were great and I enjoyed reading them all! Keep up the great work!
♣♣♣♣♣ Environmental issues can seem overwhelming in discussions with other students. So much of what we learned about environmental crises seems overwhelming and desperately impossible to overcome. I would recommend including a text in the series that gives students tangible tools to work with that empower them to feel they can dismantle the problems piece by piece.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very good lecturer and easy to outline presentations. This class surpassed my expectations.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very organized and knowledgeable. Love, love, love Andy Goldsworthy.
♣♣♣♣♣ Good class because it challenged my beliefs and strengthened them.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great orator with such an eloquent presence. Makes lectures interesting and appealing. Knowledgeable and straightforward with the course material.
♣♣♣♣♣ His lecture is based on his PDF’s and the PDF’s made it much easier to take notes in class. PDF’s were really useful for me, when I don’t really understand the articles and poems from the reader.
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought the material and lectures were of good quality, and I found it very useful that we were given the lecture slides ahead of time. The tests, though, were ridiculous. What kind of English class has fill-in-the-blank questions?! Please!
♣♣♣♣♣ Really good lectures, especially slides. Sometimes felt that he tried to cram too much into the lecture and really didn’t go into much detail.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class made me aware of our involvement in nature, that I had never realized before. I now want to become involved in change this behavior. Thank you.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course material was very interesting and in-depth. It is very relevant to our own lives and stimulates independent thinking. I enjoyed this course.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was really interesting. I like some of the readings. I liked the way the professor did the lectures.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very good and interesting course. I liked the lectures, they were always clear and comprehensive.
♣♣♣♣♣ Was able to understand the readings once explained in lecture and read PowerPoint’s.
♣♣♣♣♣ I personally didn’t find this course interesting at all.
♣♣♣♣♣ It was an eye opening course. It really charted out the progression of human attitudes toward nature J
♣♣♣♣♣ The class needs to focus on more modern stuff, that’s what people are interested in.
Unrated I enjoyed the class very much, Dr. Hiltner. Thank you.
Unrated Loved the professor! I felt the class was very interesting! And all material/tests/papers were fair. This class convinced me to really look into being an English major with a specialization in Literature and the Environment.
Unrated Class was fun. I learned a lot and became very environmentally aware. Too much reading! Tests are fair. Grading is fair and the Professor was engaging. Slides were helpful.
Honors Seminar for Engl/ES 122LE, Introduction to Literature and the Environment
An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng/ES 122LE for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing. Cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE) and is cross-listed with the Environmental Studies Department.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Clear, solid, well-informed, challenging and excellent at encouraging responses.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner rox my sox.
Theories of Literature and the Environment
Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and “green” criticism (especially in the UK), is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. In the first half of this course we will explore how the relationship between human beings and the environment has been imagined in the West, especially as it appears in the works of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Levinas, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, and Agamben. Withal, we will be considering how these attitudes toward the environment influenced writers such as Theocritus, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and so forth. The second half of the course will consider works from modern ecocritics (beginning in the 1960s and ’70s with Lynn White Jr., Leo Marx, Carolyn Merchant, Keith Thomas, and Raymond Williams, and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century) with an eye to directly applying this theory to the reading of texts.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.6 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ The instructor’s teaching, preparation and involvement in the class discussion was excellent and very, very informative. The course required a lot of reading, but each set of readings was perfectly prepared and made sense. It was more a pleasure than just an obligation to prepare for the class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor was great. Very well informed. A little too much reading. I often focused on one essay which would not be covered in class. Otherwise, very informative.
♣♣♣♣♣ A few concerns about the Reader:
1) It would help students make more historical sense of all the literature to see it chronologically ordered; it seems that the period breakdown should be followed by chronological succession of particular texts as well.
2) The copying is somewhat careless; for a $200+ reader, a disconcertingly high number of individual excerpts have lines or margins missing. It’s very hard to follow an argument when the last line of every page is missing!
♣♣♣♣♣ A good introduction to a very wide range of environmental thoughts, writing, etc. I enjoyed the framing of the class as large narrative. Great preparation for this reading list.
♣♣♣♣♣ While I appreciated the breadth of the course’s ideas, and found them especially rewarding as the term came to a close, more “themetigation” would have helped. Perhaps, putting works like Heise’s and Garrard’s in weeks 1 or 2 would have helped frame the class and to help understand what “ecocriticism” is from the beginning. However, this was a very rewarding course, and I feel that the professor lead, initiated, and inspired many interesting discussions.
Theories of Literature and the Environment
Note: This is an honors undergraduate version of the graduate seminar Eng 236.
Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and “green” criticism (especially in the UK), is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. In the first half of this course we will explore how the relationship between human beings and the environment has been imagined in the West, especially as it appears in the works of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Levinas, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, and Agamben. Withal, we will be considering how these attitudes toward the environment influenced writers such as Theocritus, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and so forth. The second half of the course will consider works from modern ecocritics (beginning in the 1960s and ’70s with Lynn White Jr., Leo Marx, Carolyn Merchant, Keith Thomas, and Raymond Williams, and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century) with an eye to directly applying this theory to the reading of texts.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner clearly knew the course material inside and out. The class was always able to direct their attention to him with ease because of his vast knowledge on the subject matter. Some of the readings were difficult to get through, however, class discussion was always flowing and coherent, so that misinterpretations from the readings were solved.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class and the format of our lectures. I feel lucky to have had this opportunity to have taken a hybrid class with grad students and Professor Hiltner. I think that we should keep this class for future students. I also like how each of us had to do a presentation – it kept the class interesting with all the different media and discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved this class. Professor Hiltner is by far one of my favorite professors in the department both for his teaching style and his excellent selection of material from a broad variety of sources. I wish I could take more classes with Ken before I graduate!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class that needs to be taught!
♣♣♣♣♣ This course needs to be taught every year!!! It is very valuable!!!
♣♣♣♣♣ I liked most of the readings. I enjoyed Pollan’s piece especially and would have liked to have seen more works like his. I enjoyed all of the discussion and appreciated Ken’s insight and encouragement.
♣♣♣♣♣ I have learned a lot from the graduate students in this class and I think Professor Hiltner is an encouraging and thoughtful professor.
♣♣♣♣♣ As much as I love this class, I do feel that the grad/undergrad format has been detrimental to my participation as I am often intimidated by the more educated grad students. At the same time, discussion in this course is far better than most other English undergrad courses for the same reason.
Introduction to Literature and the Environment
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ TA was overkill– gave way too many quizzes/assignments for a 9 a.m. Friday section. Class itself was good. Don’t change it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor was always very well organized and his lectures were complimented nicely with very informative slide shows.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great material but the relation to the nature and the environment was too broad.
♣♣♣♣♣ Those poems are very hard to understand. A handout describing the plot, etc. would be very helpful.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting insight.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class was really well put together and the lecture style was really good. I wish the focus on poetry could have extended, however slight, into the post-midterm period instead of just turning to novels/books. No lecture on Dylan Thomas?
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner’s lectures are precise and to the point. They contain good use of the media that makes the context of the course more interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ A wonderful, stimulating course. Professor Hiltner was very well organized in his presentation of material and made insightful and thought-provoking connections between the readings. The midterm was challenging but fair.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was amazing, it was a lot of work but I don’t think he demanded anything of us that was out of line. All the knowledge/info made me understand the material better. It changed my life and caused me to develop a sincere environmental consciousness.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was interesting. I have received more out of this course then I wanted. I had an awareness about our environment that I have never paid any attention to. I appreciate this course and think that it was awesome.
♣♣♣♣♣ Even though I wasn’t really interested in the topic, I thought that Professor Hiltner was a really good lecturer and very passionate about the subject. The readings were often times overwhelming, but he explicated them in a more approachable way.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked the slides, they made it easier to remember the key concepts and by having them on email we could listen to what the professor was saying too.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed how Professor Hiltner thoroughly explained all the readings. He went into great detail and helped you understand what was important.
♣♣♣♣♣ A wonderful course, one of the best I’ve taken so far. I really enjoyed the approach of new historicism. I was impressed with the way difficult topics like religion were dealt with without becoming insulting as I’ve seen in so many classes. The topic and readings were both fascinating and I would gladly have read even more. Thank you for a wonderful course and quarter.
♣♣♣♣♣ Content and teaching method was really good and clear. Lectures at times a little too crammed, a lot of information to take in. Class really expanded my understanding of environmental history through literature. Being an Environmental Studies major it helped a lot.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class was extremely rewarding. It not only gave me a good understanding of environmental issues, but also a strong grasp of literary criticism and new historicism. Professor Hiltner’s lectures were engaging, simple and fun.
♣♣♣♣♣ The series of poems were in large part rushed through in lecture, and a lot of time was spent on Walden and Silent Spring I feel that more time should be spent on the poetry, as it is the most difficult area to understand.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner did a wonderful job teaching this course. I felt that the readings were very interesting and the syllabus was well thought out. His lectures were also very engaging and extremely well prepared/organized. He truly seems interested in the subject matter. I am sorry the class has to come to an end.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the course because it never really occurred to me that these works could be interpreted from an environmental standpoint. I thought the lectures slides were great and very helpful. Definitely very surprised to see a professor that is very in touch with current culture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was a very effective lecturer. He listened to and gauged the class extraordinarily well. I enjoyed the multimedia aspects of the class – it made the subject material more accessible and dynamic. Suggestion: Not so much information on the midterm and final – maybe add a 3rd essay instead.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lecture slides were helpful and effective, they allowed me to pay close attention to the material and absorb information during lecture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Inspiring, thought provoking lectures. Well-organized and very helpful. Enjoyed the art and the must incorporated. Friendly and approachable.
♣♣♣♣♣ An expert at his subject and sought to teach information to the best of his ability.
♣♣♣♣♣ Pretty interesting, the movies were a good teaching tactic.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really liked this class. It gave me a better understanding of nature.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting course.
♣♣♣♣♣ The TA (not Liberty) needs to face forward! Good lectures, interesting materials. Midterm way too specific!
♣♣♣♣♣ Powerpoints would have been better if they were less repetitive and more concise.
♣♣♣♣♣ The teacher, overall, is a good teacher, but there could be more visual aids.
♣♣♣♣♣ Fair enough – but class based on hermeneutics. You can almost see what you want to see. Didn’t learn much but I did well. Little to complain about.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a good professor who is responsive to his students, however, the course material and the way in which it was presented were not very exciting.
♣♣♣♣♣ Lectures – ok.
Unrated Awesome class. I enjoyed it a lot.
Unrated Great class. Great teaching style/great professor/great TA. I loved it!
Unrated I liked writing the notes better than printing it out. It made me concentrate more.
Unrated I appreciate Professor Hiltner’s ability to work with the class to determine the best lectures style for the class. He is incredibly well spoken and enunciates his ideas very clearly in lecture. Overall, a very enlightening course.
Unrated I enjoyed lecture and the format. Thank you.
Unrated I loved Professor Hiltner. Some of the readings were difficult but he helped me understand them very well.
Unrated I enjoyed this class, but wish it would have more focus on more current environmental works, such as Silent Spring. I also felt that lecture could be less dense so that students are better able to retain information.
Honors Seminar for Engl 122EN, Introduction to Literature and the Environment
An honors tutorial designed to enrich the lecture experience of Eng 122EN for particularly motivated students. Includes additional readings, more extensive study of the reading list, and supplementary writing.
This course is an environmental survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, environmental critics explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures, they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand our contemporary attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Epic of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world. This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing teacher, who had an abundant amount of knowledge. He was always available and was always around for meetings.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was generous with his teaching time. He is so available by way of email and office hours. His lectures were to the point and clear. Since we were a small group he would ask us questions to help us get the information.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is very accommodating, a good lecturer and exhibits an extensive knowledge of the subject manner that he teaches.
Milton and Ecology
When confronted with the description of a literal dark cloud of air pollution hanging over Coketown in Charles Dickens’s novel Hard Times, many readers are immediately persuaded not only that our current environmental crisis has its roots in the nineteenth century, but that it was clearly making its appearance in the literature of the day. However, turn the clock back two centuries, to Shakespeare, Donne, and Milton, and many of the same readers are remarkably resistant to the notion that the roots of the crisis could reach back so far–at least with respect to issues such as urban air pollution. Nonetheless, air pollution, acid rain, deforestation, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism were all issues of great concern in Renaissance England. In this course we will consider a range of Milton’s works, including Paradise Lost, against the backdrop of these environmental issues. Just for fun, we will also be looking at excerpts from two very popular series of books that were profoundly influenced by Milton: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (who was in fact a Milton scholar at Oxford) and His Dark Materials, especially The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman. (Incidentally, “His Dark Materials” is a quote fromParadise Lost.) This course satisfies the requirements of the Undergraduate Specialization in Literature and the Environment (USLE).
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is an amazing professor that encourages students to constantly strive for a deeper understanding of the material.
♣♣♣♣♣ Enjoyed lectures and extra material like Narnia and dark materials.
♣♣♣♣♣ Discussions really contributed to deeper understanding of course readings.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very engaging class, sheets were nice but often wished for more discussion
♣♣♣♣♣ Great instructor – knows about everything and leads an inspired discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ The instructor was extremely knowledgeable about the material and really got me interested/excited about the material. I like how the course was divided into lecture and discussion class. Great course! Thank you! Ken is the best!
♣♣♣♣♣ As one of the few students without a strong English background I was a bit intimidated the first few weeks of class, but the teaching style of discussion mixed with small groups brought me out of my shell and by the end of the class I felt I was on a level playing field.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is an excellent professor. One of the best I have had at UCSB. He involves everyone to make it more enjoyable. He comments/reacts positively to every student’s comments making it easier to want to speak in class. He also saved my life by teaching English 101 as an English 199. Now I can graduate without taking summer school!
♣♣♣♣♣ I would say that professor Hiltner renewed my faith in the English department through this course, but he did that in 122 already. Milton isn’t exactly my cup of tea, I don’t like poetry and I’m kind of weary about analytically discussing my faith. However, professor Hiltner is an amazing teacher and I would recommend this course to anyone. By far my favorite teacher at UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ The only thing I have to say is that I am grateful I finished my UCBS experience with professor Hiltner’s course! UCB made a great move in bringing professor Hiltner from Harvard. Excellent professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved the way he learned our names. It really fostered discussions. The small group discussion and then review as a class because it made sure that everyone knew the answer and was more willing to participate – made for a great discussion. Allows everyone’s point of view – doesn’t put anyone down. Could use fewer, more compact questions. Because of multiple questions on each one, might actually have around 30 actual questions in 5 “official questions.” I would love to take another class from him.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is great but the questions were a little overwhelming. The questions are very helpful, but I’d like more of a lecture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor! Always helpful and very knowledgeable.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great stuff. Hooray for Milton.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors I’ve had at UCSB. He is knowledgeable, helpful, and a truly gifted teacher. I very much enjoyed this course, and I was particularly interested in the environmental aspects of this course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course. Really liked adding Pullman and C.S. Lewis. Wish we could have done more. Thanks for a great final quarter. This was my last English course ever.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class was very stimulating. Having weekly small group discussions helped cement the ideas being presented. Thank you for a great last quarter!
♣♣♣♣♣ Thanks for an extremely interesting class! I appreciate you meeting with us and getting to know us. Great job!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great job. This has been my favorite English class I have taken at UCSB thus far. Thanks for an awesome quarter!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great course. Ken has an enormous amount of understanding on the material.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is an amazing instructor with an incredible amount of knowledge. An asset to the English department.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor who knows his subject well!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is very knowledgeable on his subject material and he is a very engaging professor. Great class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved this class. The discussion questions are super helpful and interesting. The class is interesting but not too hard and awesome.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful class!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is a fantastic new asset to UCSB’s English department. I regret being a senior and being unable to pursue the emphasis in literature and ecology. As a CCS Lit Major, Ken is also a great ambassador for encouraging more cooperation between CCS and English departments. We hope you’ll share him!
Theories of Literature and the Environment
Environmental criticism, also known as ecocriticism and “green” criticism (especially in the UK), is a rapidly emerging field of literary study that will be crucially important in upcoming decades, especially as our present environmental crisis unfortunately worsens. In the first half of this course we will explore how the relationship between human beings and the environment has been imagined in the West, especially as it appears in the works of Heraclitus, Anaximander, Thales, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Epictetus, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Hegel, Marx, Darwin, James, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, Levinas, Foucault, Patocka, Derrida, and Agamben. Withal, we will be considering how these attitudes toward the environment influenced writers such as Theocritus, Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Wordsworth, Thoreau, and so forth. The second half of the course will consider works from modern ecocritics (beginning in the 1960s and ’70s with Lynn White Jr., Leo Marx, Carolyn Merchant, Keith Thomas, and Raymond Williams, and ending with the ongoing explosion of interest in the field in the 21st century) with an eye to directly applying this theory to the reading of texts.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I definitely like the chronological presentation of the readings, but would have liked framing questions and something like Kerridge at the beginning. Maybe response papers and 1 presentation instead of the 2 presentations.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is an engaging, brilliant, and approachable instructor. Although both the class and environmental criticism are in their infancy, I appreciated the degree to which the class both provided a comprehensive overview of a disciplinary approach and that approach’s openness to innovate.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was an excellent, informative and very challenging course. The reading material was very thorough and conversation was quite interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a really wonderful course and an excellent survey of the literature that bears on environmentalism. I wish there had been more primary text material in the last few weeks, and I think the class would benefit from other theoretical/philosophical works recently published. Overall, a great experience!
♣♣♣♣♣ Almost no critical comments at all! Ken is a brilliant teacher with a wonderfully associative mind. I would have liked to focus more on primary texts, and also more on recent eco-crit. and theory. Given the time constraints of the quarter system, tough, we did about all we could. One final thing: could we have set time limits for presentations? Some of them – my own included – ran a little long.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is always great at explicating complex material. I think the course could be improved with a more focused set of readings per class meeting as it felt like we couldn’t cover all the material as thoroughly as I might have liked. Some larger theoretical framing for course readings might also be helpful in making the readings feel more cohesive/connected/in dialogue with each other.
♣♣♣♣♣ The course was extremely well-prepared – a very comprehensive range of readings, of course, and discussions were guided with intelligence and very good rapport. I take the teaching as a model for my own, and appreciate very much the hard work Ken invested in the course. Ken has great mastery of the field and is terrific to work with.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken provided us with such an extensive, comprehensive reader (which seemed intimidating at first) – but this course covered so much ground that I feel I really learned a lot about a field (or fields) of thought. Ken is an engaged, thought-provoking and sympathetic teacher, and goes far beyond all expectations in terms of his knowledge about the subject matter and attention to us as students. This course was one of the best I’ve taken at UCSB!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner provided a valuable and stimulating environment (!) for discussing the texts. I enjoyed hearing other students’ perspectives on the course material but would have liked to hear more of his views, especially on earlier texts, which tended to have student presenters, and framing questions before each seminar would be most helpful.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a wonderfully approachable and helpful teacher. Amazingly/shockingly so! The course provided lots of great material on the history of “environmental criticism” as well as cool original source material, especially from the Greek/Roman period. The Greek/Roman literature was my favorite material! I wished the class had more “form” imposed on it using a more forceful or didactic or historical explanation/lecture component, bit that is probably just me. I definitely liked the chronological approach however! But perhaps more explication of texts or thematic grouping might be useful too.
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought this course was great! My only suggestions would be a bit more in-class structure and possibly more discussion. I think with the amount of presentations, we sometimes just plowed through a lot of material and didn’t get to discuss much beyond some surface questions as an entire group. I really did like doing presentations because it allowed an individual to focus deeply on an issue they were particularly interested in. I value Ken’s knowledge and would perhaps liked a bit more lecturing, etc. for framing the work we looked at.
English Literature: the Medieval Period to 1650
This course is an introduction to the first eight hundred years of English literature from the Anglo Saxon beginnings to the 1645 edition of Milton’s Poems. After surveying some very early works, such as the Dream of the Rood, we will read Beowulf, one of the greatest epics in the English language, in Seamus Heaney’s exquisite translation. From there we will move to excerpts fromSir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales before concluding in the Renaissance with Milton and Marvell. Throughout the quarter we will be considering just what these texts can tell us about the cultures that produced them, especially their attitudes toward gender, politics, religion, and the environment. What, for example, might “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” tell us about the position of women in Chaucer’s England? Similarly, does the Dream of the Rood, which is–quite remarkably–told in part from the perspective of a tree, tell us anything about how nature and the natural world was imagined?
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Encouraged a variety of opinions, not pedantic.
♣♣♣♣♣ A patient, down to earth, likeable, educated professor. A pleasure.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor! Very, very smart.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class. The professor was so cool and nice and made lecture much more interesting than I expected. Made class really fun and I actually liked all the group discussions.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class, learned a lot.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great knowledge of material. Always available to help us out and really enthusiastic.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best professors I’ve ever had at UCSB. Cares so much about his students.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really great class with great instruction. Maybe too many poems per author. Otherwise a really class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the variety of readings presented and the different approaches (nature, feminism) used in examining the readings. He was available for questions and continually updated the syllabus. I enjoyed this class, but I wish it were later in the day.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very encouraging and helpful.
♣♣♣♣♣ Loved class, loved the teacher. Got to the point of the matter, always interesting. Discussion groups crucial to my own understanding through talking with others.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent professor with great knowledge and insight who is also extremely approachable and helpful. Thanks!
♣♣♣♣♣ Awesome, awesome professor. He doesn’t try to trick us, we just have to know the material. Perfect class in every way!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great teacher, hope he stays here! Very interesting take on nature and literature, unlike any class I’ve taken at UCSB – much more labor intensive – but always more rewarding.
♣♣♣♣♣ Awesome tests. Easy going guy!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is one of the best professors I have had at UCSB. Not only is he a nice person who is very approachable with any question, but he is also very knowledgeable in the material! Great class!
♣♣♣♣♣ I can’t wait to take more classes with this professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ An extremely good professor. An asset to the English department.
♣♣♣♣♣ Interesting readings, informative lectures and professor really seems interested in students. It was nice to have a professor take the time to get to know students. Great class, I really enjoyed it!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor! Engaging, challenging, but fair.
♣♣♣♣♣ Thanks for a very informative and interesting class! It was nice to get to know you at the beginning of your office (which is extremely tastefully decorated) since it’s difficult to get to know professors, especially in large classes. Wonderful job!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was great! I would definitely take another class from him. He is very helpful, makes an effort to get to know his students, and knows how to lead a good discussion for class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a great instructor; he makes all of the readings easy to understand; his lectures are easy to follow, but not so simplistic as to make the class feel as though they are being spoken to as children. He is, overall, an excellent professor and I would happily take another one of his classes!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner was fantastic. Not only was he really intelligent, but the style in which he prepared us for the tests, etc. was super helpful. I would definitely take another one of his classes. This feeling is mutual with the other students who have taken him and recommend him!
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed the class and felt I learned a lot. I will be taking another class with Professor Hiltner if possible.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best teachers I have had in the English department. He’s very nice and teaches great! I felt I learned a lot. He was always willing to meet his students outside of class. He also would answer all our questions would encourage discussion. Although, the readings were difficult he explained them very well.
♣♣♣♣♣ I’ve had so few professors who actually cared about my academic future so I was so pleased to see that professor Hiltner actually took an interest in the future of his students. He was always available for consultation, managed people’s names and gave me great advice about grad schools. He is an amazing professor and I’m so glad I took his class. Thank you, professor Hiltner!
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is really great. He interacts well with the students and makes an effort to communicate with all of us. He is always well prepared and makes the classes very interesting. He is an excellent professor!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed being in this class. I feel I was able to gain a thorough understanding of the text because you gave us a lot of historical information regarding the text and authors. Also, thank you for making yourself available outside of class as it was very helpful.
♣♣♣♣♣ The instructor is great at keeping students interesting during class. He makes you feel welcome when asking questions or going to office hours. The tests are fair for what we learn in class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Wonderful teacher!
♣♣♣♣♣ The professor’s teaching style was alright. Lecturing in class and the tests was fair because he focused on main points and checking if we read, not obscure questions. However, doing questions with groups was annoying when group members hadn’t read the material, so doing study questions every week that way got old. Also the professor tried to cover way too wide a span of time and material. 4 poets in one class period is way too much. It’s hard to remember them and not get them mixed up with them all crammed together. Also, though this was Medieval Lit. we did Milton and Donne like in English 102 and even did a bit of Shakespeare which is English 15 or English 105. I would rather focus on a few medieval works like Chaucer in depth than go over 16th century or 14th century material that other classes cover.
♣♣♣♣♣ I liked the course. I thought Ken was a really fair professor. He didn’t design the tests to confuse, but just to make sure we read. I liked the group discussions.
Renaissance Pastoral
Of all the different ways of writing, pastoral may be the most versatile–and most misunderstood and overlooked. Pastoral can be lighthearted fun (as in Shakespeare’s As You Like It, which we will be reading), scathing, subversive, and dangerous political allegory (as it was for poet Edmund Spenser), astonishingly beautiful nature writing (such as the description of Eden in Milton’s Paradise Lost), or any number of other forms. In fact, pastoral can take nearly any shape: a play, a lyric poem, an epic, a novel, or even a film. In this course we will be tracing this remarkable mode of writing from its earliest beginnings to its height in the Renaissance, while also considering how it is still very much at work in the world today.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.8 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I actually enjoyed the course a great deal and didn’t miss a single lecture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing professor! Always available and very helpful! Made one class enjoyable and I wanted to learn and I did learn! Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best classes I’ve ever taken here at UCSB. The professor inspired me to become extremely interested in Renaissance literature.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved this course and the handouts were especially helpful ☺
♣♣♣♣♣ Great lecturer, really kept what could have been a dry topic interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ More discussion of readings needed.
♣♣♣♣♣ I loved the course and it I weren’t graduating I would want to take more of your courses. Thank you so much for such an enjoyable course.
♣♣♣♣♣ Amazing, good job! ☺
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor does a terrific job of engaging students – getting to know them and is very interested in helping everyone understand the material and get good grades. Excellent! ☺
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent course, got me interested in Medieval literature that I was ignoring.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is the best English professor I’ve ever had at UCSB in the three years I’ve been here. Not only did I learn an exceptional amount, he was kind and considerate. I
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Ken Hiltner is a great instructor whom obviously has extensive knowledge of the subject matter (Renaissance Pastoral literature). He is always aviable for outside help and is very clear in his instructions. Professor Hiltner is one of the best English professors I have had in my four years at UCSB. He is always amiable and is very fair in his grading. He really makes the subject interesting and engaging. A+ for Professor Hiltner ☺
♣♣♣♣♣ The course was very well organized, I loved the teaching style. Ken should not go back to Harvard.
♣♣♣♣♣ The class was well rounded. Professor Hiltner presented the readings in an easily understood way and he was always available for clarification outside of class.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is always very organized and clear during lectures. He is very approachable and always available for questions. The reader is helpful and it was great not having to buy all the individual books.
♣♣♣♣♣ Liked the small classroom environment. Some good discussions took place and it was a nice change from my other classes.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class. Professor Hiltner is exceedingly helpful and knowledgeable.
♣♣♣♣♣ I enjoyed this class so much. Professor Hiltner made the material easy to understand and was always open to discuss material. His knowledge of the material was superb and his enthusiasm made the class fun. It was easy to speak up in class because his teaching style was so open.
♣♣♣♣♣ I liked the course a lot. It was very hard and tedious, but I definitely learned a lot from the classical and biblical sense ☺
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken Hiltner is a really great professor! He is highly educated and communicates properly. He is always available during office hours. He was born to be a professor. Very professional, encouraging and organized. If I wasn’t graduating I would take every other course he’s offering! Wonderful.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great, stimulating class – tough, though, but worth it!
♣♣♣♣♣ Best professor I’ve ever had! So sad that this is the only quarter I took classes with him. Very impressed. Made the class fun and easy to understand literary works and concepts. Wish I had him for more classes!! ☺
♣♣♣♣♣ He is an excellent professor and I thoroughly enjoyed the course. He is incredibly intelligent and it is demonstrated throughout the course. Pastoral is fun!
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was a fabulous professor, who was extremely insightful, interesting and knowledgeable. He was kind and very helpful outside of class. Ken made the topics and overall course enjoyable to go to. Would have liked less readings and to not have a paper due less than 1 week before the final, but otherwise a great person.
♣♣♣♣♣ Use of slides or board would have helped but Ken was great.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is a very effective and informational teacher but this is the most boring class ever so it is hard to care or pay attention.
♣♣♣♣♣ While lectures were a little heavy in historical context, the selection of texts was EXCELLENT. Course material was entirely thorough and ran the entire gamut of pastoral works available. Truly an enlightening course! Thank you!
♣♣♣♣♣ Great professor; fair; creates an atmosphere great for learning. Tests fair.
♣♣♣♣♣ I thought the professor was very patient, but the course was not at all that interesting.
Unrated Ken was very organized and explained ideas very well. He was also always available if I had any questions.
Unrated I liked that he set up meetings with us.
Unrated Professor Hiltner is highly skilled in the teaching of pastoral literature. His lectures were well prepared and participation in class was well moderated.
Metaphysical Poets
A generation after Shakespeare, a group of brash young poets boldly set out to reinvent English literature. Arguing that poetry had become boring and bloated—an endless, mindless repetition of classical references and tired themes—they attempted to shock the world with something entirely new. And shock it they did. When writing about love, for example, they not only penned some of the most beautiful poetry that has ever been written, but they did so openly and audaciously: in a single poem John Donne not only unflinchingly gave our words “sex” and “ecstasy” their modern meanings, but forever yoked the two. This course will introduce the major themes of the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Vaughan, and others.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent class and teacher. Fun.
♣♣♣♣♣ Loved the format, explicating poetry as opposed to historical minutiae. Wonderful class!
♣♣♣♣♣ He was an excellent professor. I was extremely impressed and my only disappointment is that he is not teaching any courses this spring quarter! I would recommend him to anyone. I learned so much in this class.
♣♣♣♣♣ This class was exactly what an English course should be. It challenged me to think about material I was familiar with in new ways. Probably one of the best classes I’ve taken.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken was one of the best, if not the best, instructors I’ve had through the English department. He is extremely knowledgeable and obviously has a wide range of expertise on the metaphysical period. I thoroughly enjoyed everything we read as well as the discussions.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is great. He is very open to ideas and never shoots a student down. He has an excellent grasp of the subject matter. I also appreciate his effort to allow one on one interaction. I really enjoyed this course.
♣♣♣♣♣ This was a fantastic course! Ken is very good at initiating deeply analytical discussions and getting the class to lead/participate much more than he does. We are all very interactive due to his prompts. He is knowledgeable and passionate about the works and is very available outside of class.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really appreciate his interest in and concern for students doing well and enjoying the course. He is very good at facilitating an interactive and enlightening class discussion. I feel that I have taken away an important understanding of the metaphysical poets beneficial to an English major.
♣♣♣♣♣ Really enjoyed the class. When in lecture mode it at its best, concern over getting to know the students was appreciated, course material interesting.
Unrated As a professor, Hiltner was a success, and it showed that he was knowledgeable in the material. He was interactive and made the subject matter interesting. He was understanding, nice and intelligent.
Ecocriticism and the Writing of Nature
This course is an ecological survey of Western literature. In much the same way that feminist critics are interested in literary representations of gender and women, ecological critics (or simply “ecocritics”) explore how nature and the natural world are imagined through literary texts. As with changing perceptions of gender, such literary representations are not only generated by particular cultures; they play a significant role in generating those cultures. Thus if we wish to understand contemporary America’s attitude toward the environment, its literary history is an excellent place to start. While authors such as Thoreau and Wordsworth may first come to mind in this context, literary responses to environmental concerns are as old as the issues themselves. Deforestation, air pollution, endangered species, wetland loss, animal rights, and rampant consumerism have all been appearing as controversial issues in Western literature for thousands of years. Starting with an excerpt from one of the West’s earliest texts, The Myth of Gilgamesh, this course will explore the often-ignored literary history of the natural world.
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 4.9 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ I actually enjoyed the course a great deal and didn’t miss a single lecture.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great teacher, able to spur on discussion.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great attitude and joy to have as an instructor. Not all of the readings were in my taste, but a very good class nonetheless.
♣♣♣♣♣ One of the best classes I’ve taken in 3 years at UCSB, definitely best professor. Very helpful in office hours, and lectures really explain the readings. Don’t change. I plan on taking more classes with you.
♣♣♣♣♣ Best instructor I have had at UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ Instructor very caring and patient with students. Made course material interesting. Would definitely take another course with this instructor.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very helpful, interesting lectures and good tests. Very understanding.
♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent class, fair grading, good lectures. Overall, a great class and wonderful professor. He renewed my faith in the English Department at UCSB.
♣♣♣♣♣ This is a really good class. Interesting and thought provoking. Hiltner is a good teacher. Hard to read 2 books in 2 weeks though.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner was amazing! I will jump at the chance to take any course with him in the future. He showed genuine interest in our ideas and curiosity, made himself readily available for discussion outside of class. Great discussion – he is intelligent and speaks with clarity.
♣♣♣♣♣ Very interesting, fresh information. Presented in an exciting, relevant way. Perfect amount of work and readings. Went above normal standards to get to know students and to teach effectively. Interesting lecturer. Fair grader. Overall, a very valuable course, taught in an interesting and accessible way. People were sad when instructor left on the last day of lecture!
♣♣♣♣♣ Very helpful, went out of his way to make sure people knew what was going on. Easy to talk to. Good discussions. Fair tests/papers.
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this course. All material read in an ecocriticism view was very interesting and thought provoking. I learned so much and feel more conscious about my surroundings, environment and literature. Professor Hiltner was excellent and I very much appreciate his kindness, help an great attitude in class!
♣♣♣♣♣ I really enjoyed this class. It had a good combination of literary focus as well as information and learning on a new subject. I appreciate the instructor’s teaching methods and dedication to accommodating his students; he obviously cares a lot about his students’ education and that is a rare, precious quality. I also found his lecturing interesting.
♣♣♣♣♣ This course was so interesting it was fun! I was so into the course ideas and concepts that I didn’t want to do any other courses’ work as it would take my time away from this, more important class. And when I was writing for another class, the ideas of this class would make up lots of the content in relation to the other class’ concepts. Thanks and see you next quarter, Professor Hiltner!
♣♣♣♣♣ A really fun class with interesting material. You have a great command of the subject.
♣♣♣♣♣ Hiltner is an exceptional professor. He is thorough and very knowledgeable, and always willing to explain or discuss with the students. His explanations of the material were good, but I strongly feel that the material itself could have been much more interesting or intriguing. The readings were so focused on pre-modern times that the course became less compelling than he was capable of making it.
♣♣♣♣♣ Professor Hiltner is a good teacher, yet I felt he employed group discussion mode too often. I feel it would have been more efficient to be taught the concepts on the discussion sheets as a class and then break into groups to talk about it. His method, I felt, had made the students more the teacher.
Unrated. Ken Hiltner is very nice and knowledgeable – always willing to help and is available for office hours.
Unrated. He was awesome! Very enthusiastic and made the material interesting. Enjoyed him very much. He also gave me good criticism.
Unrated. Professor Hiltner is very helpful and clear. Although I found the tests and readings very difficult but he put them in simple words and made us understand them. I’m very satisfied with him.
Milton and His Contemporaries
In addition to providing a comprehensive introduction to Milton’s poetry and prose, this course also covers most of the seventeenth-century works on the First Qualifying Exam for Renaissance
“Please rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”
Average rating: 5 of 5 (♣♣♣♣♣ Excellent; ♣♣♣♣♣ Very Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Good; ♣♣♣♣♣ Fair; ♣♣♣♣♣ Poor)
♣♣♣♣♣ This professor assigned a very large amount of relevant and interesting material and I feel I received a profound and comprehensive survey of Milton and his issues. Critical materials were thoughtful and helpful. Student presentations gave good preparation for first qualifying exam. This professor is extremely intelligent and on the ball.
♣♣♣♣♣ Great class atmosphere, wonderful discussion prompts. Very soothing voice. Thank you.
♣♣♣♣♣ I found Dr. Hiltner to be very helpful and accessible. The course was challenging, yet reasonable and discussion was engaging.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is an extraordinary professor and thinker. Class under his guidance was interesting, thought inducing and varied. His own opinions and thoughts are wonderful and I would like him to share more. I fell as though he often holds back in order to promote class discussion, but he doesn’t need to.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is a wonderfully approachable, learned teacher. He is a resource in discussion as he allows students to voice varying opinions and then often provides middle ground for all parties. The extra presentations may have been a bit distracting – perhaps only one a week? I honestly would have liked to use some of the presentation time for further discussion of Milton.
♣♣♣♣♣ Ken is a brilliant guy and an excellent teacher – we’re lucky to have him here at UCSB. I wish he would have done a bit more lecturing/sharing of his ideas in the class. I would have liked to hear his thoughts, especially at the end of class. He could have also told students when they were being ridiculous. But a great class!
How are the ratings obtained? Each term, on the last day of class, UCSB students are asked to grade their instructors. Evaluation forms are passed out, the instructor leaves the room, and students are given the opportunity to rate the course and instructor.
Are all the ratings here in their entirety? Yes, the good, the bad, and the ungrammatical, they are all here. Every evaluation for every course I have taught at UCSB is here, in its entirety. They have not been edited in any way.
Are the ratings anonymous? Yes, students do not put their names on the evaluations. Moreover, instructors are not given access to the evaluations until after they have posted all of the grades for the course.
What exactly are students rating? Students are simply asked to “rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching.”
How do the comments work? After rating the instructor, students are given the oppurtunity to add “comments or to further explain your rating of the instructor and the course.”
How does the rating scale work? It is a five-point scale: (a) excellent, (b) very good, (c) good, (d) fair, and (e) poor. However, unlike nearly every other similar rating system in existence, at UCSB 1 is “excellent” and 5 is “poor.” To avoid confusion and bring this in line with the rest of the world, I have taken the liberty of inverting the scale, so that 5 is excellent. The 5s are listed first, followed by the 4s, and working down from there to the “Unrated” comments (see below). Averages are rounded to the first decimal (i.e. 4.77 rounds to 4.8).
Who administers the ratings & what is “ESCI”? The rating system, which is officially known as ESCI (Evaluation System for Courses and Instruction), is administered by the UCSB Office of Instructional Development. Ratings are typically refered to as “ESCI scores” or “ESCI data.”
How long has UCSB been conducting the ratings? The UCSB Office of Instructional Development began the system in the 1970s. Which leads to the next obvious question…
Why doesn’t UCSB publish these ratings? To be honest, I do not know. To be even more honest, I am frustrated that they do not. Other schools, such as Harvard University, have long made similar material, known as their Course Unit Evaluations (CUEs) available to students, who annually published the ratings and comments in their CUE Guide. In my opinion, UCSB needs to make this data public. This leads to the next question…
Are you permitted to make this information public? According to the Office of Instructional Development’s website, “Faculty members own their individual ESCI data. ESCI data are collected as an aid to individual faculty members for use as summative feedback on their courses and instruction. As such, individual ESCI results are the property of the faculty member.” I interpret this to mean that, as my property, ESCI data is mine to do with as I see fit – including posting online.
Do other departments ask students for ratings? Yes, the ESCI program is university-wide at UCSB.
How were the ratings and comments posted online? Since the comments are all handwritten, it was necessary to have them first transcribed by a student before I posted them online.
Why are some of the comments “Unrated”? I do not know for sure, but can venture a guess. Students are in fact given two evaluation forms. The first, from the UCSB Office of Instructional Development, is a computer-read form that only asks for ratings, not comments. The second, somewhat less formal sheet from the English Department, asks for the same ratings a second time, as well as for comments. I suspect that, after doing the ratings on the more official looking form, students simply forget to do the rating again, or believe it unnecessary a second time. Since we only have the comment on those forms, I note that they are “Unrated.”
Do “Unrated” comments factor into the course average? Maybe. The average score is based on ratings from the computer-read form (mentioned in the previous answer) from the Office of Instructional Development. Because, given the above logic, I suspect that many of the students who produced “Unrated” comments on the English Department form actually provided a rating on the form for the Office of Instructional Development, their rating may well factor into the course average.
Are students only asked to evaluate the instructor? Students are also asked to “rate the overall quality of the course, including its material or content, independent of the instructor’s teaching.” However, since averaging (or listing separately) the ratings from the two questions would likely be confusing, and answers to this second question can take into account factors like quality of textbooks and AV material, I have just posted the rating of the “instructor’s teaching.” However, feedback on this second question is included here, as students are asked to “further explain your rating of both the instructor and the course” in the comments.
How do these ratings compare with RateMyProfessor.com? RateMyProfessor.com and UCSB are attempting similar evaluations. UCSB asks students to “rate the overall quality of the instructor’s teaching”; RateMyProfessor.com evaluates the “overall quality” of a professor based on their clarity and helpfulness. Since both use a scale of 1-5, ratings should be somewhat comparable. However, because just a handful of students post ratings on RateMyProfessor.com – often only those that feel strongly about a course (either positively or negatively) – the results can potentially be skewed. In contrast, because every student in the class is asked by UCSB for their ratings and comments, the ESCI data provides a much larger, and potentially more accurate, sampling.