professor
Taleen Mardirossian

Taleen Mardirossian is very smart, friendly, and clearly knows how to teach. She is unfailingly patient with students and still manages to bring everyone back on task. Some people have said incredibly stupid bs in class and she'll keep smiling, tactfully get them to reconsider their point of view, and then refocus on the text. Only drawback is that all the texts studied in class have been written by white authors (even texts on racism), except a short paragraph by James Baldwin. Mainstream feminism only gets you so far.

Of the UW Human Rights professors this past semester, Taleen was by far the most relaxed. She’s an incredibly intelligent individual (she’s been published everywhere and used to be a lawyer), and is extremely passionate about her work. She genuinely cares about her students and is always accessible via email or in office hours. Her readings were sometimes tedious but always interesting, and the bulk of her assignments were low stakes. She could be kind of a harsh grader, but always provided helpful feedback and was willing to discuss grades outside of class. My only complaint is that she has way too much faith in the power of group work (peer reviews are an incredible waste of time). If you’re at all interested in the modern issues surrounding Human Rights, her class is a good fit!