Spring 2027

Introduction to Culture and Health

Introduction to Culture and Health explores how culture, biology, and power shape human experiences of birth, health, therapy, and death using anthropological tools.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Mai See Thao

Summary

1 / 5

Past student reviews · Claire Wendland

Exams were described as very difficult because they referenced specific details from extensive reading assignments. Although the reading load was reduced for one semester, it remained a significant amount of work.

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ANTHRO 265

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.70 GPA, 82.6% A/AB (n=86 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

CLAIRE WENDLAND is recorded teaching in Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MAI SEE THAO is recorded teaching in Spring 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MARIA LEPOWSKY is recorded teaching in Spring 2020. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 900

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Claire Wendland

The course required reading two whole books and numerous technical papers, with an average of 60 pages of required reading per week. Class discussions were noted as good, though lecture recordings were unavailable.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.22 GPA, 55.6% A/AB (n=36 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.70 GPA, 82.6% A/AB (n=86 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.44 GPA, 72.2% A/AB (n=54 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Claire Wendland

Exams were described as very difficult because they referenced specific details from extensive reading assignments. Although the reading load was reduced for one semester, it remained a significant amount of work.

Past student reviews · Claire Wendland

A student found the lectures dry and rehearsed, making it difficult to take notes while the instructor went on tangents. They also described the slides as unhelpful and the tests as near impossible.

Topics

  • The interplay of culture, biology, and power in shaping health outcomes, therapeutic practices, and life-cycle events.
  • Health experiences of marginalized minority populations in the United States.

Skills

  • Applying anthropological conceptual tools to analyze the intersection of culture, biology, and power in health contexts.
  • Examining global and U.S. case studies focusing on marginalized minority populations.

Grades

Historical instructor

Spring 2027 · Projected

Before grades are released

– average GPA

Approximate 80% prediction interval

About this estimate

The course’s semester-average GPA, not an individual student’s grade. The center uses 5 same-season terms, weighted toward recent results.

The range uses the finite-sample 80th-percentile rank of absolute errors from earlier same-season forecasts. Each forecast uses only records from earlier terms. At least four forecasts are required; bounds are rounded outward and limited to 0–4. This is an empirical estimate: changing instructors or grading policies can reduce its coverage.

5 earlier forecasts · 0.20 GPA average error.

Grades over time

Through Spring 2027

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
ANTHRO 265 · Spring 2027

Introduction to Culture and Health

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:156:024919",
    "course_id": "ANTHRO 265",
    "course_uid": "course_10d227652dafce0ad77dd6d8",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "024919",
    "source_subject_id": "156",
    "title": "Introduction to Culture and Health",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 3,
    "typically_offered": "Spring"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
Download part 1
Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "fd90ba07a6adea59200d6b1c1636fed12a658166b8ece6918d4f65a8c664b023",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}