Spring 2027

Shamanism

Survey of shamanism as a religious tradition and sociocultural force in Siberian, Asian, and Native American societies, exploring shamanic rituals, roles, and cosmology.

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

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Thomas Dubois

The course was manageable as long as students read the assigned materials and took the assignments seriously.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Articulate the general characteristics of the wide array of religious traditions around the world that scholars refer to as "shamanism."

  • Analyze the key roles of shamans within their communities as healers, leaders, and visionaries.

  • Articulate the ways that historical US policies toward Native American communities, shaped consciously or unconsciously by Christian European cultural and religious assumptions, sought to suppress and replace Indigenous religious practices in a process that scholars refer to as "colonization."

  • Examine the ways in which US medical, legal, educational, and other institutional frameworks have been or can be modified to help facilitate shamanic revitalization and a process that scholars refer to as "decolonization."

  • Practice the research, writing, and presentation skills associated with professional scholarship in the fields of Religious Studies and Folklore Studies.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

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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
FOLKLORE/RELIGST 352

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

THOMAS A DUBOIS is recorded teaching in Spring 2008, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Fall 2011, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2022. 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

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Thomas Dubois

A student described the shamanism course as the most interesting class they took in college, calling the professor super cool and chill.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2018: 3.83 GPA, 92.9% A/AB (n=70 letter grades); Spring 2020: 3.94 GPA, 94.4% A/AB (n=72 letter grades); Fall 2022: 3.94 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=55 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Thomas Dubois

The course was manageable as long as students read the assigned materials and took the assignments seriously.

Past student reviews · Thomas Dubois

A student who took the course over summer found the lectures long but said the workload was not heavy and exams were easy if they prepared, with notes allowed.

Topics

  • Shamanism as a religious tradition and sociocultural force
  • Shamanic rituals, roles, and cosmology
  • Cultural and political uses of shamanism in traditional and modern contexts
  • US policies, colonization, and suppression of Indigenous religious practices
  • Institutional frameworks, shamanic revitalization, and decolonization

Skills

  • Articulating general characteristics of shamanic religious traditions
  • Analyzing shamanic roles as healers, leaders, and visionaries
  • Articulating how US policies suppressed Indigenous religious practices
  • Examining institutional modifications for shamanic revitalization
  • Practicing research, writing, and presentation skills for scholarly work

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2022— 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 2022

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2022 · 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

1213 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.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "bd1f497c6fc4d16cb1b8248fac6935deb95b0c7cd743620bf38ab16faece1ed3",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}