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Stacy Conradt
12 More Classes We Wish Our Colleges Had Offered
by Stacy Conradt - September 2, 2009 - 10:28 AM

[Here's the original 12 Classes We Wish Our Colleges Had Offered post, in case you missed it the first time around.]

satc1. Sex and the City, Oregon State. This class was so popular in 2006 that the original limit of 200 students per class had to be upped to 500. The professor used the HBO series to discuss sex and gender issues in society

2. Brewing Science and Society (New Mexico State University). Sounds like a blast, but as our commenter said, this upper 300-level chemical engineering class is not a cakewalk (or a pub crawl, if you will). It was still on the course list as of Fall 2008.

3. Media Studies: Jim Morrison and the Doors (Plymouth State). It’s only offered the fall semester of odd years, so if you’re dying to take this class, you’d better think about enrolling at Plymouth State soon. “Participants utilize a cultural studies framework to analyze films, television programs, musical offerings and print and online materials in relation to their historical contexts, ideological contents, symptomatic characteristics, and overall contributions to our modern-day understanding of media processes and effects.” Way to make a fun class sound boring! I suppose they have to weed people out somehow.

tom4. Adult Swim (Kent State). Professor Ron Russo has been teaching about Adult Swim’s animation block on the Cartoon Network since 2004. He even wrote the first textbook on the subject – Adult Swim and Comedy. Each class consists of about 30 students and has the full support of the Adult Swim show creators – some, such as Tom Goes to the Mayor’s Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, have even teleconferenced with the class to answer questions.

5. Forbidden Knowledge (Wheaton College). This one sounds particularly flossy to me. But I’ll let the course description speak for itself: “Throughout recorded human history, the acquisition of new knowledge through scientific discovery or technological invention has confronted human societies with ethical dilemmas. Students in this class will encounter these quandaries of the human condition by studying religious, literary, philosophical and scientific texts. The texts selected for this course explore the changing attitudes at various moments in history toward the need to forbid or control knowledge.”

6. Marksmanship (University of Texas at El Paso). Not only can you learn how to shoot a .22 caliber rifle in this “advanced skill” class, you can repeat the class for credit.

7. Cowboys, Samurai, and Rebels in Film and Fiction (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). Yep, a whole semester of watching Kurosawa films and getting college credit for it. Well, the actual description is, “Cross-cultural definitions of heroism, individualism and authority in film and fiction, with emphasis upon tales or images that have been translated across cultures.”

zombies.jpg8. Zombies! The Living Dead in Literature, Film and Culture (University of Alabama). Are you kidding me!? I’d kill to take this class. It examines the parallels between Americans (living ones) and zombies, such as consuming goods not necessarily needed. The class also gets to go on a pretty awesome field trip – a zombie walk.

9. Hitchcock and His Influence (UCLA). Another one I would probably switch schools to sign up for. In the first seven weeks of the course, students watch and analyze Hitch’s films; the last three weeks focus on screening Hitchcock-influenced films.

10. Honors Introduction to LEGO Robotics (Towson University). Remember LEGO Mindstorms? Basically they’re Lego blocks with programmable parts including motors, sensors, gears, axles and beams. At Towson, you can play with them for credit. The childhood toys are used to each the basics of mechanics and electronics.

11. Shops and Shopping (Yale). Sweet. Hopefully it includes field trips, although that’s not mentioned in the course description. Instead of bargain-hunting, this class claims to teach development of buildings specifically meant for shopping, evolution of packaging, the role of advertising and the suburbanization of shopping.

12. Pornography: Writing of Prostitutes (Wesleyan University). If you’re caught looking at porn on a computer at the school library at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., just tell the librarian that you’re doing homework. The course description says, “Our examination [of pornography] accordingly includes the implication of pornography in so-called perverse practices such as voyeurism, bestiality, sadism, and masochism, and considers the inflections of the dominant white-heterosexual tradition by alternative sexualities and genders, as well as by race, class, age, mental and physical competence. We also attempt to identify the factors, intrinsic and extrinsic, which align the pornographic impulse with revolutionary or conservative political practices. But our primary focus is on pornography as radical representations of sexuality whose themes are violation, degradation, and exposure.” The class involves a project as part of the final – students have submitted performance art pieces, photography, videos and fiction writing.

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Comments (21)

  1. I love these posts about interesting classes at universities! At work, I once had to read through the entire course catalog of my school, the University of Toronto, and I definitely found a few classes I wish I had known about. I think the best I came across was in the Department of East Asian Studies: “A History of Japanese Monsters”.

    posted by Tanya on 1-30-2009 at 3:49 pm

  2. I went to Towson…I dont recall that class in the handbook. Now I’m sad.

    posted by Caitlin on 1-30-2009 at 4:18 pm

  3. At The University of Texas Austin there is a History of Vampires course – its very thorough and interesting! The prof is also hilarious so that helps alot.

    posted by Deseree on 1-30-2009 at 4:25 pm

  4. I am currently enrolled in History of the Early Modern Witch Hunt. My capstone is all about Psychology in Film where we watch a regular movie every other week and write about it. I have also taken How to Watch TV News but had the option to take a class devoted to J.R.R. Tolkein’s LOTR series. I could have also taken Bowling all at the Unveristy of Oklahoma

    posted by Cassie on 1-30-2009 at 4:54 pm

  5. I went to Temple University in Philadelphia where I took “UFOs & Abduction” with David Jacobs, Phd.

    We learned about the history of the American government related to UFOs, and then about his experience hypnotizing his patients to discover what the aliens prodded them with.

    Also, the aliens look like Praying Mantises.

    posted by Adam on 1-30-2009 at 5:06 pm

  6. I went to school at Columbia College in Chicago. We had full classes on Harry Potter, The Simpsons, and The Lord of the Rings.

    Jealous?
    :)

    posted by Lovesfool on 1-30-2009 at 6:34 pm

  7. The Shop and Shopping one sounds great. One of my favorite documentaries of all time is “Shopology” which is a study of shopping including how our brain process the countless options in a grocery store and shopping-related diseases like compulsive shopping (there is more but I can’t remember them, it’s been a very long time since it’s been aired).

    Another one is the Frontline special “Merchants of Cool” which focuses on how companies market to kids and teens.

    You can view the program online:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/

    posted by Sarah in CA on 1-30-2009 at 10:12 pm

  8. I’m actually require to take ‘Practical Malting and Brewing’, but ‘Goat Herd Management’ was just for fun. It’s fun going to an agricultural school.

    posted by mercutio stencil on 1-31-2009 at 3:07 am

  9. I know Uncle John’s Bathroom reader has something like this, I just don’t remember which one. And at University of Alabama, they have classes on cheerleading and the Dukes of Hazard.

    posted by Sara on 1-31-2009 at 2:25 pm

  10. I’m currently enrolled in Forbidden Knowledge at Emerson College, pretty much the same class as you mentioned up there, and it’s pretty awesome.

    posted by Zach on 1-31-2009 at 11:32 pm

  11. Disney and Pop Culture- S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.
    I actually crashed this course any chance I got last semester. I didn’t want credit. I just wanted to spend hours watching classics like Cinderella, that I never got to see as a kid, and Song of the South, which, as it’s banned in the US, just about no one got to see as a kid. (Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay…)

    posted by Natalie on 2-2-2009 at 1:43 pm

  12. I’m guessing that alot of people know this….
    But there is a Tupac course given at UC Berkeley. My homegirl took it and afeni Shakur came and spoke to the class and everything…. O yes 40,000 dollar tuition to learn this.
    I give the course for 100 dollars and a meal!? Any takers?

    posted by Chrystani on 2-2-2009 at 4:13 pm

  13. Give me Forbidden Knowledge, Zombies,Shops and Shopping, and Pornography: Writing of Prostitutes and I would be one happy college student.

    posted by Danielle on 2-10-2009 at 4:44 am

  14. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, you can take a class on Vampires in Literature and Film for three credits. Right now seven of my friends are enrolled in it, and they totally love it. They just watch vampire movies and read Dracula all semester long.

    posted by Emily on 2-17-2009 at 11:10 am

  15. I want number 8.

    posted by Jen Pen on 2-23-2009 at 6:53 am

  16. I went to Central CT State University and took a course comparing and contrasting Frank Sinatra and Stephen Hawking as pop icons – unfortunately it was a one-time deal, as the topics of Honors courses change every semester. It was completely brilliant, though!

    posted by MG on 8-25-2009 at 10:33 pm

  17. I graduated from Kent State in 2008 and I took Adult Swim my final semester. It was a blast! I wrote my final paper on Futurama… it was just so hard to have to watch my favorite cartoon for research… j/k.
    My sister took the class last semester, so now I have both the first and second edition of the ‘Adult Swim and Comedy’ book and they’re both signed by the author/instructor of the class…

    posted by conanismyidol on 9-3-2009 at 7:16 am

  18. Which Wheaton college is the class “Forbidden Knowledge” at? My bro just graduated from Wheaton in MA and he’s never heard of it, but there’s also a Wheaton in Illinois I think…

    posted by Megan on 9-3-2009 at 10:05 am

  19. I took a class called “Beatles . . . Four Lads Who Shook the World” here at the University of Oklahoma. The professor is something else. He show up in clothes they wore from several eras. It makes perfect sense, as he is the drummer for Midlife Crysis, a classic rock cover band. They brand themselves as the “most educated” classic rock cover band because he and he band mates are professors in the music department. To add to his eccentricity, he is an accomplished bassoonist.

    posted by Tony on 9-3-2009 at 11:38 am

  20. Aww, I think my zombie comment got deleted.

    I’ll take out the weird creepy part and just mention that Max Brooks should make appearences in the Zombie class.

    posted by Steven on 9-3-2009 at 12:25 pm

  21. I’m proud to say I’ve taken the Harry Potter course at Pepperdine.

    posted by Lauren on 9-10-2009 at 3:01 am

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