mdcspe69 said:

---

Sorry I cannot help you. It was 56 years ago that I took his class. I am not really sure which volume or text that it was. I was not much of a reader back then. I ended up reading the book backwards. I would read a chapter and then want to read the chapter before to see what happened to cause the events in the original chapter. Does that not make any sense?

---

sounds like a good trip…..was it entitled the "Muncie Years"?

So one summer I took a history class at UC Berkeley.

The professor sounded like a psychopath. He had an unusual delivery where he would yell and be really passionate, but also sound really deranged.

His name was David Wetzel, and he became my favorite prof at UC Berkeley, even though he wasn't a prof. He sparked my love of history.


First off, since some of his classes are archived, you can listen to his lectures for yourself here. Check it out.
https://archive.org/details/ucberkeley_webcast_itunesu_556290271

Wetzel has a Ph.D in history from the University of Chicago and ended up working in UC Berkeley's loan and receivables department. Yet the history department allowed him to teach a summer class.




He's been interviewed by the Daily Cal several times.

mdcspe69 said:

---

Sorry I cannot help you. It was 56 years ago that I took his class. I am not really sure which volume or text that it was. I was not much of a reader back then. I ended up reading the book backwards. I would read a chapter and then want to read the chapter before to see what happened to cause the events in the original chapter. Does that not make any sense?

---

Actually it makes perfect sense. You read a chapter (say, on California during World War II) that interested you and that led you to read the chapter that would give the background of the events, which would interest you in that chapter, and lead you to read the prior chapter, ad infinitum. There are worse ways to read a book!

I thought you wouldn't be able to help me on selecting an edition, but I thought it would do no harm to ask. If you look the course 56 years ago (1968), you probably read the first edition.

RichyBear said:

---

I was at Cal in the early '60s, So any professor that I had is dead or over a century old. A few of the younger ones might be youngsters in their '90s.

---

Yeah me too:
Washburn in anthropology. Wheeler aud my freshman year. Baboon expert. Took me a while but I finally figured out his point. There's no such thing as race!

Stampp in history. My senior year. Causes of the Civil War. Week by week he methodically disposed of one suggested cause by revisionists after another. Proving it was the obvious one. Slavery.

And Booth in drama. Senior Shakespeare seminar. Famous family in theater. (And assassination!)

If forced to choose only one course, the one that really stood out to me was Principles of Plant Morphology taught by Donald R. Kaplan. He was an interesting man and an outstanding professor. It was clear that he enjoyed teaching the material and getting through to his students. And he was more interested in how you arrived at an answer than whether or not you got the right one (within reason--you couldn't get every answer wrong). I wish I had gone back to thank Mr. Kaplan after I had graduated, but I'm pleased to have this thread in which to memorialize him. May he rest in peace.

https://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/inmemoriam/html/donaldrobertkaplan.html

Congrats to UC Berkeley psychology professor Dacher Keltner, a consultant on Inside Out and Inside Out 2.

JimSox said:

---

RichyBear said:

---

I was at Cal in the early '60s, So any professor that I had is dead or over a century old. A few of the younger ones might be youngsters in their '90s.

---

Yeah me too:
Washburn in anthropology. Wheeler aud my freshman year. Baboon expert. Took me a while but I finally figured out his point. There's no such thing as race!

Stampp in history. My senior year. Causes of the Civil War. Week by week he methodically disposed of one suggested cause by revisionists after another. Proving it was the obvious one. Slavery.

And Booth in drama. Senior Shakespeare seminar. Famous family in theater. (And assassination!)

---

Maybe you have seen this already but: if you make it to Philadelphia, make sure you check out the Walnut Theater...pictures etc. of the Booth family...they call themselves "America's Oldest Theatre" and once owned by Edwin Booth (John's brother)...

JimSox said:

---

RichyBear said:

---

I was at Cal in the early '60s, So any professor that I had is dead or over a century old. A few of the younger ones might be youngsters in their '90s.

---

Yeah me too:
Washburn in anthropology. Wheeler aud my freshman year. Baboon expert. Took me a while but I finally figured out his point. There's no such thing as race!

Stampp in history. My senior year. Causes of the Civil War. Week by week he methodically disposed of one suggested cause by revisionists after another. Proving it was the obvious one. Slavery.

And Booth in drama. Senior Shakespeare seminar. Famous family in theater. (And assassination!)

---

Stampp's work was seminal in establishing the modern view that, as Lincoln put it in his Second Inaugural, " "Slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war."

Big C said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

bearsandgiants said:

---

Astro 10 - Alex Filippenko, if he's still teaching. Guy won teacher of the year at least a few times in the late 90s when I was there. Incredible class.

---

^ THIS!

Not that I would actually know because I haven't taken the course. I've seen Alex speak at Cal Days and Foothill College several times. He's a great ambassador for astronomy & cosmology (although I think his cosmology/cosmetology joke is getting tired). But his lecture on the LIGO findings shortly after they were released was simply amazing.

I BEGGED my daughter to take Astro 10, but she never fit it into her busy schedule. What a slacker! Just because she double majored and achieved a Cal 3.96 GPA is NO EXCUSE!!! Kids these days! Plus, it was said that Filippenko actually kinda put the screws to kids in this class and demanded WAY MORE math than anyone really expected or felt was reasonable for such a course. But I cannot honestly say. Just what I heard.

---

Reminds me of Tim White's Anthro1 course, back in the day (Introduction to Physical Anthropology). People took it because they heard he was a good lecturer, then they ended up learning a lot more than they had planned. Professor White was also very approachable in office hours and then, for decades later, he would be on news programs, providing expert commentary on the latest origins-of-man discovery/theory. "Hey, he was my professor at Cal!"

---

Tim White had a feud with Richard Leaky, son of Louis and Mary Leaky and the Head of Antiquities for Kenya with control of all digs in the country, which he hoarded for himself. Leaky grew up hunting fossils and was a great fossil hunter, but never went to college and his scientific knowledge was out of date, handed down by his parents. It is the main reason why White and other anthropologists focus their digs on Ethiopia.

Prior to the final, White tells us it will cover 6 important topics we reviewed in class, such as mitochondrial DNA vs nucleic DNA, the different types of isotope dating techniques, etc. he gives us the topics. Then when we show up for the final we are handed a photocopy of an Omni Magazine interview with Richard Leaky and all White says is "Read it and comment on it." Of course, in the interview Leaky mentions the 6 topics and gets them all wrong. So Tim White gets to read 500 blue books trashing his rival and later brag "I have 500 freshmen at Berkeley that know more about anthropological science than Richard Leaky."

^ Hilarious. Yes, Tim White used to trash Richard Leakey on a regular basis when I had him, but I guess the magazine hadn't come out yet. I could just picture him doing that final exam and getting a big kick out of it. Funny guy and great prof.

Dick Leakey?