Spring 2027

Introduction to East Asian History: Japan

Introduction to East Asian History: Japan surveys major cultural, social, political, and economic developments in Japanese history from ancient to recent times.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Viren Murthy

Attendance and participation significantly impacted the grade, while most tests were completed outside of class. Both the professor and TAs were noted for grading strictly, requiring strong mastery of the material.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify cultural, political, and intellectual currents in Japan from ancient times to the present.

  • Analyze writings about Japanese history and to construct their own historical arguments.

  • Use historical thinking to discuss politics and culture, not only in Japan, but in the world.

  • Examine their own opinions about Japan.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ASIAN/HISTORY 104

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

VIREN MURTHY is recorded teaching in Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024. 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

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

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

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Viren Murthy

Students described the course as well-structured and clearly laid out, with no surprises in the material. The content was considered interesting, though some found the provided notes disorganized.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2022: 3.19 GPA, 42.4% A/AB (n=59 letter grades); Fall 2023: 3.25 GPA, 57.9% A/AB (n=57 letter grades); Fall 2024: 2.93 GPA, 43.8% A/AB (n=48 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Viren Murthy

Attendance and participation significantly impacted the grade, while most tests were completed outside of class. Both the professor and TAs were noted for grading strictly, requiring strong mastery of the material.

Past student reviews · Viren Murthy

Students reported that lectures were often long, disorganized, and difficult to follow, with one describing the teaching style as condescending. Others noted that the professor skipped basic concepts and jumped into complex ideas.

Topics

  • Cultural, social, political, and economic developments in Japanese history
  • Ancient to recent Japanese history

Skills

  • Constructing historical arguments from written sources
  • Applying historical thinking to global politics and culture

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2024— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2024

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2024 · 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

1330 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.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

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

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "718ce0b8e82f30e4886eb575c3ab7241bc4632be957e195818f101b717be3ff1",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}