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Dibs Fall 2026

RELIGN 55

Spirit of Medicine

Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Examination of relationship between medicine, religion, and society; how religion is help or hindrance to health; and what health care might look like beyond biomedical clinic. Examination of historical entwinement of religion, medicine, and society in Western antiquity to early modern period; disentanglement in Enlightenment to early 20th century; and confluence of science, technology, and capitalism in biomedicine compartmentalized from religion today. Conceptualization of rhetorics and epistemologies of healing--what it means to be healed and how one would know--and put in tension with faith healings and religion-as-medicine, medicine-as-religion, and integrated approaches. Analysis of alternatives to biomedical status quo in theoretical medicine and in health care delivery, with particular attention to questions of justice and holistic care in U.S. and of policy and practice globally. P/NP or letter grading.

Course statistics

Predicted GPA
3.67
n = 141 · 3 terms · ± 0.044
A range
81%
of letter grades
Taken P/NP
3%
100% of those passed
D / F / W
2.1%
incl. withdrawals

Sections in Fall 2026

Sections offered, with live enrollment and predicted GPA
Section Status Enrolled Seat risk Meets Instructor Predicted GPA
Lec 1 Closed
42 of 42
100% full
 fills TR 12:30pm-1:45pm Gillespie, R.T.
3.67n=141 · this instructor

Enrollment history

Final enrollment per term, averaged across that term's sections. Four years deep, summer excluded. Per-section live curves are on each section page.

  • 4921F
  • 4923F
  • 4824F
Enrolment by term: 21F 49, 23F 49, 24F 48
Peak 49 Most recent 48 in 24F 3 terms on record

Grade distribution

  • A 84 · 57.5%
  • A- 30 · 20.5%
  • B+ 8 · 5.5%
  • B 10 · 6.8%
  • B- 3 · 2.1%
  • C+ 1 · 0.7%
  • C 2 · 1.4%
  • F 3 · 2.1%
  • P 5 · 3.4%

Grey bars are non-letter outcomes — P/NP, S/U, incompletes. They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.

By instructor

Instructor Predicted Raw n Terms A range
GILLESPIE, RYAN T 3.67 3.67 141 3 81%

“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department — so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.

By term