Fall 2026

The Perfectible Body in Religions, Medicines, and Politics

Explores concepts of bodily perfection across religions, medicine, and politics in various cultures and historical periods.

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Recorded instructors · Fall 2026 No instructors listed

Summary

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=18 letter grades).

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Course details

CreditsCredits unavailable

Typically offeredNot recorded

Subjects

Asian Languages and Cultures, Religious Studies

About this course

Looking at the cultural institutions of politics, medicine, and religion in multiple cultures and historical times, students will explore ideas about what constitutes a perfect body, how and why different parts of the body are privileged over others, and how and why the notion of bodily perfectibility differs for men and women, children and adults, and humans and gods. Readings encourage such questions as: Is the perfect body attainable and, if so, how? And, who benefits from bodily perfection (or the rhetoric of the bodily perfection)? We will ask these questions with comparative intent: we want both to learn about cultures other than our own and, in the process of understanding the other, we will ask how this new knowledge might empower us to be more observant and critical of the role(s) and treatment of the body in our own society historically and today.

Prerequisites

Course map

Junior standing

Junior standing

ASIAN/RELIGST 505

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

Prerequisite text tree

Junior standing

Professors

Fall 2026

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Historical instructors & teaching patterns

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Calendar & sections

Fall 2026

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Section	Mode	Enrolled / capacity	Waitlist

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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=18 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

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Topics

Bodily perfection in religions, medicines, and politics
Cultural institutions of politics, medicine, and religion
Differences in bodily perfectibility across demographics and species
Historical and contemporary treatment of the body

Skills

Critical analysis of cultural and societal roles of the body
Comparative cultural understanding

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2025— not enough history to project Fall 2026.

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

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UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

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Model outputs & technical records

nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4

LLM outputs across runs

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Full model traces

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Model & dataset provenance

{
  "model": "nvidia/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-NVFP4",
  "model_revision": "1355db6a052410cfd62085d94b58866fd0f2c3c5",
  "task_version": "14",
  "output_id": "fd3606770316d4a4ed1217b542bc8824019594079d06ab87db08c3e3e47c1460",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00"
}