Spring 2027

Conspiracy in the Ancient and Modern Worlds

Explores conspiracy in ancient Rome (household, Bacchus, early Christianity) and modern cases like Salem, Red Scare, Kennedy, and Watergate.

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

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Grant Nelsestuen

The course is reading-heavy, but material is posted online in advance, and grades rely on weekly discussion posts, a journal entry, and papers.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Demonstrate knowledge of ancient Roman society and culture.

  • Examine, analyze, and interpret ancient texts in translation.

  • Critique ancient Greek, Roman, and/or Near Eastern societies and cultures and compare them to other societies and cultures.

  • Assess and critique the value of the concepts of “conspiracy” and “conspiracy theory” for understanding historical, political, social, cultural, familial, and religious phenomena.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
CLASSICS 340

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

GRANT NELSESTUEN is recorded teaching in Spring 2017, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Fall 2023, Fall 2025. 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

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 · Grant Nelsestuen

Students found the lectures engaging and the material well-discussed in class, with high expectations for essay writing.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2020: 3.49 GPA, 78.5% A/AB (n=93 letter grades); Fall 2023: 3.74 GPA, 89.9% A/AB (n=69 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.77 GPA, 91.8% A/AB (n=49 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Grant Nelsestuen

The course is reading-heavy, but material is posted online in advance, and grades rely on weekly discussion posts, a journal entry, and papers.

Past student reviews · Grant Nelsestuen

Students advised attending office hours for essays because the TA graded them harshly, while noting the instructor graded other work leniently.

Topics

  • Roman household structure and paterfamilias authority
  • Religious conflicts: Bacchus cults and early Christianity
  • Modern conspiracies: Salem, Red Scare, Kennedy, Watergate

Skills

  • Examine, analyze, and interpret ancient texts in translation.
  • Critique ancient societies and compare them to other cultures.
  • Assess and critique the concept of conspiracy theory.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— 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 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · 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

1316 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.

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
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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": "34d2a04e5246f910185ae69a0f5b4a7f042c7f03f5883605f438a52fb7cbcb27",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}