(My name is Inés Escobar González and my last name is Escobar González.

I love my students but they tend to struggle with Hispanic names.)

Social Theory

“She was amazing overall.”

“Professor Gonzalez is brilliant. She always comes into class with a positive attitude and a will to delve into the material. She is an excellent discussion leader, enabled students to voice their textual interpretations in an organised manner.”

“I don’t believe Prof Ines will be teaching at UChicago anymore, but it was an honor to finally be taught by her after reading some of her previous amazing reviews. She really tried to take away some of the stress that comes with the PIR Sosc course that other professors really emphasize (which makes some students have negative/unpleasant experiences with PIR). Prof Ines just really wanted her students to enjoy and understand the importance of the books we were reading."

“Professor Ines is the best SOSC instructor I’ve had. The questions she asks really structure the lecture, help us understand more of the main points of the text, and stimulate us to think and pay attention to what is in the book as well as each other’s reflections. The readings she assigns are almost always reasonable which meant I could actually do them most of the time and be far more engaged during class. She is also super fun and makes even the most boring texts interesting to discuss. BOTTOM LINE: TAKE SOSC WITH HER.”

“Professor Gonzales is amazing, she has contributed to my learning in immeasurable ways. I’m so grateful to have had her as a professor.”

“The instructor’s explained expectations matched exactly to her perception of our work.”

“The lectures were always fun, interesting, thought-provoking, and engaging. Absolutely best SOSC quarter for me.”

“Prof. Gonzalez was AMAZING. Most contributive part of her teaching was just allowing us to talk and making us all interested about the works we read – she’s clearly passionate about the class and its contents, and I think that that energy passed onto the students. Really sad that she’s leaving next year otherwise I would recommend her section to anyone thinking about taking Power.”

“The lectures were extremely engaging! Professor Gonzalez is very knowledgeable, she asks thoughtful questions and facilitates a very engaging discussion. The readings were very reasonable and targeted. The essay prompts were really interesting as well. She is probably the best professor I’ve had at this school.”

“It was a discussion class and I really enjoyed the format. I really enjoyed how the teacher provided context for what we were reading and facilitated discussions. Doing the discussion on appropriately assigned reading segments, she was also very friendly and encouraging to people to get them to share their thoughts. It was a breath of fresh air as I didn’t enjoy the last two sections of P.I.R. not because of the content but the way it was taught.”

“Professor Gonzales was very good; she encouraged discussion, provided background information on the text, and overall provided a laid-back yet professional class environment. She provided helpful feedback on essays.”

“The discussions were extremely helpful with Prof Ines as moderator. She was extremely kind and never made one feel like their comments were pointless.”

“The discussions were really interesting and made me think of concepts I didn’t initially pick up on by just doing the readings.”

“A very interesting end to the PIR sequence. Best quarter of all three!”

“The discussions were very well set up. It was clear that our professor understood the texts well and was very good at encouraging engaging and productive discussions. I would definitely recommend taking power with Ines!”

What could the instructor modify to help you learn more? “Nothing.” “N/A Amazing professor” “nothing.” “Nothing.” “NOTHING.” “n/a” “n/a loved the class style” “I can’t think of anything.” “Professor Escobar González did a terrific job.”

“lectures were awesome.”

“Quite often I would come to class confused about the reading and learn so much from an hour of just talking about it and listening to other people’s opinions about it.”

“great course, great professor”

“I gained strong critical thinking skills and was able to connect well known thinkers ideas to current life.”

“VERY refreshing”

“Ines successfully got us to think about tensions in the text so we can more fully understand the arguments at hand. She also implemented more creative class activities like working with passages on google docs so we can hone in on close reading. I appreciated that a lot.”

“Ines created a low pressure environment that allowed their students to say their ideas without fear.”

“Professor Ines was clearly extremely knowledgeable about the texts and the material that we were covering, which was super helpful as some of the texts were relatively dense. She would encourage us to speak our thoughts about different parts without being afraid.”

“Professor Escobar Gonzalez was great!”

“Very engaging professor. I didn’t feel tired like I do in many other online classes.”

“She lightened the reading load for the second part of the quarter, and gave notice of upcoming changes along with her explanation of why she felt the change necessary.”

“The instructor first and foremost asked how we were doing, showing that she cared about our mental states just as much as our intellectual interactions. And she was respectful of our time by rarely going more than 1 minute over our class time.”

“she genuinely wanted to know how we were doing”

“Professor Escobar González’s enthusiasm really made the class feel like it was in-person.”

Ethnographic Methods

“all the readings I did were pretty superb. Assignments all being centered on the project kept me focused on that.”

“Ines led the discussion very well and we always have insightful comments; she also steers the direction back to what’s important if we start heading down a rabbit hole of some kind and helps grounds us in the difficult / more important questions which sometimes are the most ‘basic’ looking questions.”

“The weekly written assignments were definitely a burden but also extremely helpful and good practice.”

“Ines was wonderful and was able to lead fruitful discussion over the texts we read to understand how the authors ‘do ethnography’ so we could learn from them; the assignments were very helpful and built-up to our final research paper; the assignments challenged me to think deeply and complexly about my topic; small group work was super helpful for my research as the feedback was brilliant and challenged me to improve my work.”

“Amazing (short and rare) lecturettes, great discussion groups to really ask questions and get individual time to explore your project, learned a lot from other students’ presentations, collaborative.”

“Inés gave this course a very clear structure but also strongly encouraged personal project development. Her approach was very well balanced.”

“the only class that was not helpful was the IRB approval session.”

“The structure of the course was so conducive for learning ethnographic methods. Inés was also really accessible.”

“Ines had a really impressive grasp of all our projects, how they knit together, and how they were supported or otherwise related to our class’ readings. In discussion and office hours, she was constantly relating our class work to our individual projects which I found really helpful and was thankful for.”

“Ines is very insightful and knowledgeable in anthropology and she can pull our discussions back to productive places where we’re focused on the important questions (i.e. instead of going off chasing criticism of author’s problematics without understanding what they’re even saying). With my project, her individualized feedback gave important theoretical consideration to where I could supplement thinking about my topic, and gave it depth in ways I would not have managed by just interviewing people or trying to string my thoughts together without having perspective on the history of thought to contextualize. which made the class a very comfortable place to be in and interesting to participate in.”

“Ines probably was the hardest-working teacher I have ever had. She cares deeply about our learning and creating a syllabus – assignments and readings – that challenge us to be actual scholars.”

“Ines is truly one of the most thoughtful, invested, and engaging graduate student professors I have had at the University. Her passion for the subject was incredibly clear, and it was easy to see how hard she worked at putting together the syllabus and course material, and was incredibly supportive during office hours. I look forward to seeing the impact she’ll make as a tenured professor, some day soon!”

“Ines was great at leading discussion, while at times we all struggled to engage in discussion over texts (sometimes because we did not read them) Ines was able to still stir discussion and she encouraged us to apply what we discussed to our research; Ines was not afraid to challenge students and while at times it could be intimidating it was ultimately helpful for us to learn how to support and elaborate our claims; Ines was also great at asking questions about our research and providing us wonderful feedback for our written assignments.”

“The instructor was very well organized and her division of the ethnographic research into weekly segments was super helpful.”

“This was not a required course for me, but it was an excellent introduction to ethnography, and I certainly plan to take the skills I learned forward.”

“This class taught me so much! I learned how to read ethnography critically and then conduct those same forms of ethnography. I also feel like my writing got better in this course!”

“The amount of individual attention I got is unparalleled. We met twice a week and both meetings were full of advice. The readings were incredible and actually interesting. Of course, the feedback on my writing, which sometimes was more than the writing itself, was beyond helpful.”

“Her incredible knowledge and commitment to us.”

“Truly, it was the best class I’ve taken.”

“I think the prof was super adaptable!”

“She was really great about checking in with us and setting up an environment where we could all be honest!”

“I think the Tuesday assignments were a great way to learn more about everyone’s work before we came back together on Wednesday, so we did not waste time”

Economic Anthropology

“This is one of the best courses I have taken at UChicago. The topic was introduced well, and we dived into both theory and careful critical looks at various approaches to policy related to development in Latin America.”

“I loved the integration of anthropology, politics, economics, and architectural theory that we got in the class. Inés was very creative in putting together the syllabus and making sure we weren’t always reading just case studies or just macro-level theory.”

“Inés is an absolute joy in class. She has a positive attitude, and is a friendly leader of our discussions, while also being very prepared for our seminars.”

“This course was masterfully designed. Each reading was interesting and refreshingly purposeful with regard to the broader themes of the course. Professor Escobar Gonzalez did a great job at moderating class discussion and would often provide additional context that would stimulate conversation.”

“While Professor Escobar González’s expertise certainly enriched class discussions, her ability to clarify nuanced concepts (i.e. the securitization of residential mortgages) in simple terms greatly added value to my understanding and my engagement with the course materials. As a result, this has been the most insightful and interesting course I’ve taken.”

“Course was very well organized. I can tell the professor put a lot of effort into it can cared about this course very much.”

“Inés was great at leading discussions!”

“Ines is deeply knowledgeable about the topic and prepared to engage with the students in a meaningful way.”

“Ines is incredibly well versed in the topic and chose excellent readings.”

“The instructor’s facilitation of the class discussion contributed most to my learning. There were points throughout discussions, especially as the quarter progressed, where discussions lacked student participation (and motivation). She adjusted well by prefacing questions with a brief lecture or summary of the reading, providing her own insight before turning to the class, starting with simple questions that gradually led to more complex topics.”

“I found financialization’s role in transforming industry and cementing a neoliberal economic regime fascinating. Knowing very little about finance to begin with, this class really helped me understand the consequences of a financialized world and helped demystify finance as an abstract concept by revealing the social relations it depends on.”

“The readings were really well selected to stimulate critical thinking about the particular topic that week. There was a great mix of theory, empirical research, and anthropological readings that allowed me to think about financialization from abstract, intellectual, and humanizing perspectives. Class discussion helped tie together the readings and also extended our thinking beyond them to reflect independently on a financialized reality.”

“The class structure allowed me to fully engage with the material without feeling too stressed. While I am not generally comfortable participating in class, the engagement really did help me understand class concepts and provoke critical thinking.”

“Readings were carefully selected and constituted a reasonable work load. Professor Ines was excellent at leading discussions.”

“She was engaging and clear. Every time we made a contribution she summarized it to make sure everyone was on the same page.”

“Professor Gonzalez was clearly prepared for class with notes prefacing and summing up the day’s material, with well thought out discussion questions that not only helped us understand difficult concepts but also extended our thinking past the readings. She was able to guide the discussion well and knew when to jump in when we stumped, or redirect the conversation when needed.”

“She selected amazing readings and she was great at facilitating discussion in class, also she was very knowledgeable about the topic so I had a lot to learn from her. She was also very available over office hours and over email, and she was genuinely excited about helping us learn more and write our final paper project.”

“A great course designed and taught by a great professor. Would highly recommend”