Not to be outdone, Sandel turned to Summers and said, “I’m not against private property. Now may I have my pen back?”

By the end of the two-hour session, some students were fed up with the instructors’ antics. Jonathan M. Husson ’07, an earth and planetary sciences concentrator in Adams House, said that the class was “a bit too catty.”

“It was too much about them taking personal jabs at each other and trying to one-up each other, rather than actually trying to work through the debate surrounding globalization,” Husson said.

But Emily Z. Yan, a senior at MIT who is hoping to cross-register in the course, said the first session lived up to her expectations.

Yan and other students will learn if they can enroll in the class this morning, when results of the lottery for limited spots will be posted on the course website.

Students packed the orchestra level and the first nine tiers of pews in Sanders. But the balcony was almost empty—perhaps because students were intimidated by the Herculean reading load outlined in the course syllabus.

The assigned readings range from “The Wealth of Nations,” by Adam Smith, to “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders,” by Osama bin Laden and associates.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reached at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.