Nathan Tarcov - University of Chicago

Professor: Nathan Tarcov

Department: TBD

College: University of Chicago

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: SOSC15100
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Tarcov is a big gun in the philosophy dept here, and likes to proceed in the Socratic style. Heads up! He shuts down the talking-just-to-talk people and is generally excellent.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: SOSCMACH
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Tarcov is a very talented teacher whose particular gift is eliciting from the student knowledge unwittingly absorbed, leading the student to form their own opinions and generating a personal interest in the text. His lectures are also great, but he really excels in small round table classes where he can teach by asking questions.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CSTNM
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Breath-taking. Armed with prodigious learning, he plays his cards close to his chest but always strikes with questions whose slow quiet inevitability cut to the heart of the matter.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: POLPHIL
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: N/A
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Straussians can be scary in their reverence for classic texts, but Tarcov is relatively benign in this respect. He manages to put a human face on the Straussian approach: I have the impression he may actually care about people more than texts. As you would expect from a U of C Straussian, his philosophic knowledge is encyclopedic. Worth taking.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: SOSC
• Grade Received: A-
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: N/A
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Tarcov is brilliant, a hardcore Straussian, and has a tendency to make intellectual history seem a lot more coherent than perhaps it ought to be. He's terrible about returning papers on time, though, and he admits that his grading of papers is capricious.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: PLSC208
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: N/A
• Textbook Used: N/A
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

A very stange little man. He laughs constantly throughout class, but we're never quite sure why. Reading is good, but discussion is somewhat lacking. Not too much work overall but class can sometimes drag a little.