This was the best and most engaging course I have taken at UVA. It was difficult- you have to do the readings and he won't really explain them in class, but his style of lecture and passion for the subject matter makes lectures enjoyable. It's easy to get lost in Professor Megill's tangents and oddities, but he has a genius understanding of how students ought to think. If you follow Megill's advice, complete the readings, and listen well, this course is rewarding and you will leave it truly understanding the material. Marx is relevant in the past, present, and future and this class has been surprisingly applicable to my other coursework at UVA. Definitely not a light course, I took this just looking for something interesting/different and it ended up being my most time-consuming class. Also, almost all of your grade is based on one paper and the final exam. If you're debating whether to take this class, 100% do it.

This was definitely the most unique class I've taken at UVA. For starters, this is *NOT* an easy A (if you couldn't already tell by the statistics above). You're gonna have to work for every single grade point in this class. Lots and lots of reading (dozens of pages per night at least) of very, very dense 19th century economic and philosophical texts. Less writing than you might expect, but there are "think questions" (around a paragraph or two tops) due every week, as well as a big essay due around 3/4s of the way through the semester. Plus a midterm and a final. I learned so much every single week of this class, it was painful, and in retrospect I'm not sure if I would take it again, but I ended up doing pretty well so I'd say it was worth it just for the perspective on such an interesting and relevant topic. Never go unprepared when debating YDSA members again!

This course changed my life and it will change yours too if you are willing to put the work in. Megill pushes his students to be the best students that they can be, and it may seem excessive at first but it works. Having taken this class I am so much better at reading comprehension, understanding arguments, forming arguments, and writing. And Marx is such a relevant figure in so many disciplines today--understanding him and where he is coming from has elevated me, not just as a history student but also as a philosophy, sociology, and politics student. The class is incredibly reading intensive--sometimes we would get an eighty page assignment the day before it was due (Megill teaches the class differently every time so the works you engage with and the depth to which you talk about them changes year by year). The grade consists of a midterm, a term paper, and a final exam, as well as some occasional "Think Questions" that he formulates for the readings. All of these assignments are very confusing and frustrating but the best advice I have is something Megill will say many times himself--think for yourself and read what is there.
#tCFF23

Professor Megill is one of the brightest intellectuals in UVa. Class is well-organized, the professor has been teaching it for around 30 years and he always tries to improve the class even further each year. The class goes chronologically with Marx's writings, from the earliest, so you can evaluate him with his own development. One midterm with relatively less weight, one paper which will probably be your hardest but most intellectually rewarding, and one final. This class will change you, take it.

This class is definitely worth taking, even if it is difficult. Megill is clearly a professor who cares more about teaching his students to think than about grades, which makes it a really rewarding class to take.

One of the best classes I've taken at UVa thus far. Megill is incredibly intelligent, and really pushes you to think and write clearly. The class is difficult, but manageably so if you're able to put the time into it. You'll get a lot out of the course, not just knowledge about Marx, if you put the effort in.

Good class. Not a history major but interested in the material, so took it C/NC. Good decision because it is interesting, but it does require a lot of reading to do well

Megill is a genius, but as a genius, he's pretty inaccessible. He's very well versed in foreign languages, history, literature, philosophy, economics, and obviously, Marx. More of an academic than a teacher. I felt that he spent too much time rambling about the minutiae of Marx's life and thought and not about important principles. I did learn a lot of Marx and Marxism though, but mostly from reading the material closely. In the beginning, it was really difficult, but you eventually adjust yourself to Marx's style of thinking. Megill described the midterm as an inverse bell curve (lots of Fs, D, and Cs, a fair amount of As). Overall, take this course if you want to witness a genius in action or if you want to force yourself to understand Marxism beyond its stereotype.

LOTS of extremely dense reading material that presupposes substantial knowledge of philosophers like Hegel. Exams are half essay and half passage ID questions that ask for ID's of multiple 1-2 sentence excerpts from the reading that may or may not have been discussed in class.

sooooooo worthwhile- marx is everywhere. Megill may be the most intelligent professor i've ever had too. the course can seem cumbersome at first, but give it a week- there's certainly a learning curve to reading Marx. can't recommend it enough