Spring 2027

Introduction to the Middle East

Introduction to Middle East cultures, history, politics, and societies with emphasis on Islam.

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

Summary

1 / 5

Past student reviews · Samuel England

The course was reading-heavy, included weekly mini-quizzes, and exams felt difficult for students without Middle East background; students said they had to teach themselves.

Grade history

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

All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
INTLST 266

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

SAMUEL ENGLAND is recorded teaching in Fall 2018, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Fall 2023, Spring 2025, 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 · Samuel England

Student feedback on Samuel England was mixed: some found his lectures engaging and his manner personable, while others found the course unorganized and hard to follow.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.62 GPA, 76.5% A/AB (n=17 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.42 GPA, 66.7% A/AB (n=18 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.50 GPA, 67.7% A/AB (n=31 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Samuel England

The course was reading-heavy, included weekly mini-quizzes, and exams felt difficult for students without Middle East background; students said they had to teach themselves.

Past student reviews · Samuel England

Some students found England accessible and open to feedback, while others found him hard to contact and unresponsive to suggestions.

Topics

  • Cultures, geography, history, modern states, politics, societies, and economies of the Middle East
  • Islam as a religion and Muslim peoples

Skills

  • Interdisciplinary analysis of Middle Eastern cultures, history, and politics

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 
[]
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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": "a2a59ba39b350e7759d549bcc9e02b233f0addeebffd0324d69e49652ac43c90",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}