Spring 2027

Literature and Popular Culture

Literature and Popular Culture examines the intersection of literature and popular culture across various forms and media.

offering recorded3 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Martin Foys4.0/5Lisa Cooper3.8/5Oscar Useche

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Óscar Useche

Under Useche, one student reported reading 10-20+ pages or watching a 2-hour movie before each MWF class, plus endless discussion, a group project, and a paper with little instruction.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify key critical and theoretical intersections between literature and popular culture through various forms and media.

  • Identify and apply methods and approaches for analysis of literary and cultural texts to demonstrate literature's contemporary and historical relevance.

  • Analyze relationships among society, literature, and language that underlie the construction of beliefs.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

None

  • None
ENGL 177

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

Prerequisite text tree
  • None

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.14/5 from 37 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

For this course: 4.0/5 raw quality · 3.4/5 difficulty · 8 reviews

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Past student reviews · Martin Foys

Martin Foys delivered passionate and funny lectures that students found engaging, though the course required extensive reading, often exceeding 100 pages per class. Assessment depended heavily on TAs for essays and exams, with some students finding papers graded harshly while others noted exams were manageable.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2021: 3.43 GPA, 77.3% A/AB (n=163 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.64 GPA, 83.2% A/AB (n=184 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.32 GPA, 67.0% A/AB (n=97 letter grades).

Lisa Cooper

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.90/5 from 51 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

No course-specific feedback yet.

Past student reviews · Óscar Useche

Oscar Useche required 10-20+ pages of reading or films before each MWF class. One student felt the concurrent group project and paper received little instruction, while another appreciated his good feedback on paper drafts despite the long readings and occasional tangents.

A third student found Useche personable and thorough, noting he explained content clearly and held meetings to ensure understanding. This reviewer also described him as a flexible grader who provided helpful feedback.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.53 GPA, 89.7% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.66 GPA, 96.0% A/AB (n=25 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.64 GPA, 84.8% A/AB (n=46 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Past student reviews · Sunny Chan, Ramzi Fawaz, Joshua Calhoun

Past students described Joshua Calhoun’s lectures as captivating but criticized the high workload, mandatory note-taking, and subjective grading. Ramzi Fawaz was a dynamic, fast-paced speaker with high expectations for a 100-level class. Some early reviews found lectures disorganized, though one student valued specific discussion sections.

JOSHUA CALHOUN is recorded teaching in Spring 2025, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

MARTIN FOYS is recorded teaching in Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2024, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

OSCAR USECHE is recorded teaching in Fall 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2024, Fall 2024, Spring 2025, Fall 2025, Spring 2026. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

RAMZI FAWAZ is recorded teaching in Fall 2021. 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 002Classroom Instruction0 / 120
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 3300
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 312Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 313Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 314Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 315Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 311Classroom Instruction0 / 220
LEC 003Classroom Instruction0 / 120
DIS 301Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 306Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 308Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 309Classroom Instruction0 / 220
DIS 310Classroom Instruction0 / 220
LEC 004Classroom Instruction0 / 120

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

Meeting source records
Download part 1

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Martin Foys

Students described Foys as an engaging, funny speaker who was passionate about the subject. They found his lectures amazing and fun to attend.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.77 GPA, 90.8% A/AB (n=381 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.65 GPA, 84.5% A/AB (n=458 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.43 GPA, 72.7% A/AB (n=143 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Óscar Useche

Under Useche, one student reported reading 10-20+ pages or watching a 2-hour movie before each MWF class, plus endless discussion, a group project, and a paper with little instruction.

Past student reviews · Martin Foys

Under Foys, one student said their grade was entirely dependent on a TA who graded papers and discussion participation. Another found exams not very hard, but papers were graded harshly, limiting paper grade gains.

Topics

  • Intersection of literature and popular culture
  • Critical and theoretical frameworks
  • Society, literature, language, and belief construction

Skills

  • Identify critical and theoretical intersections between literature and popular culture.
  • Apply analytical methods to literary and cultural texts.
  • Analyze relationships among society, literature, and language in belief construction.

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 4 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.

8 earlier forecasts · 0.17 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
ENGL 177 · Spring 2027

Literature and Popular Culture

Recorded 2026-10-29
ENGL 177 · Spring 2027

Narco-Narratives

Recorded 2026-10-29
ENGL 177 · Spring 2027

Beowulf to Tolkien

Recorded 2026-10-29
ENGL 177 · Spring 2027

Reading Like a Monk

Recorded 2026-10-29
Raw records 
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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 2026-10-29

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 1Download part 2
Model & dataset provenance 
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  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "a7904e2d3c53b1f7c44a114164bfd8bef659be0dbbb34498ef70e5f3f21264cf",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "c9cd06eaa45f9ddf7e69faa38b89ff3d3dd995dd",
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