Stacy Conradt
12 College Classes We Wish Our Schools Had Offered
by Stacy Conradt - October 2, 2007 - 2:46 PM

I took a course last semester called “Research Methods and Theory.” It was as exciting as it sounds. I would much rather have been taking one of these 12 classes. From pop culture to maple syrup, these aren’t your average lectures.

1. The Horror Film in Context (Bowdoin)

chopping-mall.JPGWith Halloween approaching, you will probably soon discover my love of scary movies – especially bad ones (Chopping Mall, anyone?) That’s why I wish Bowdoin’s course “The Horror Film in Context” was offered as a graduate class at Iowa State. It’s not about the psyche of Freddy and Jason, however – students taking the class can expect to discuss why society is infatuated with horror movies and death in general.

2. Simpsons and Philosophy (Cal-Berkeley)

three-eyed-fish.jpegI’m sure my husband is considering enrolling at the University of California at Berkeley as we speak, just to take “Simpsons and Philosophy.” You’ll need to know more than Simpsons trivia – the class takes an in-depth look at how the long-running cartoon depicts social issues such as racism and politics. Passing the class, which includes writing a 22-minute show for the final exam, earns students two credits.

3. Maple Syrup – The Real Thing (Alfred)

maple.jpgChances are you probably don’t spend too much brain power pondering maple syrup, besides wondering whether it’s most delicious on French toast or pancakes. Alfred University in New York is changing that for all students who take the course “Maple Syrup – The Real Thing.” It covers every aspect of the sweet breakfast topping, from production to products to, yes, recipes.

4. The Science of Harry Potter (Frostburg State)

HarryPotter_small.jpgAnother course near and dear to my heart is “The Science of Harry Potter,” offered at Frostburg State University in Maryland. This class combines the fantastical with the physical by asking if some of the seemingly impossible things in the popular series could actually be plausible. Think about it: if there is a possibility that an invisibility cloak or a flying broomstick could actually exist, wouldn’t you want to know?

5. Oprah Winfrey – The Tycoon (U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

oprah.jpgOprah is conquering the world. The talk show, the book club, the magazine… and now, history class? The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offered “History 298: Oprah Winfrey – the Tycoon” in its class schedule several years ago. Like many of the other courses on this list, the class was more than meets the eye. Although it appears to be about the famous talk show queen, the class uses Oprah’s cultural rise to study race, class and gender issues.

6. Far Side Entomology (Oregon State)

thefarside.gifI took an entomology class during my undergrad and found it much more interesting than I thought I would. Imagine how enthralled I would have been with Oregon State’s “Far Side Entomology,” which used Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoons to study insects. Larson’s tactic of giving his insects human qualities make them more relatable, which in turn gave students research ideas and questions they may have not otherwise thought of. Before you commence transfer proceedings, know that this class is no longer offered.

7. History of Electronic Dance Music (UCLA)

ccmusic.jpgDo you still love C+C Music Factory? Get pumped to Deee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart” while driving? Then the UCLA’s “History of Electronic Dance Music” would probably be a cakewalk for you. According to the syllabus, “Class lectures will deal with the historical narratives told about the music, musical form and technique in dance music, the political and cultural implications of the relentless hedonism of the dance floor, the influence of chemicals and technology on music production and consumption, and the aesthetic possibilities and pitfalls when popular music is no longer synonymous with popular song.”

8. The Future is Lost: TV Series as Cultural Phenomenon (Tufts)

Lost-logo.jpgNext February is a very important month. Why, you ask? Because it’s when Lost returns. If, like me, you’re desperately jonesing for a Lost fix NOW, go ahead and enroll at Tufts University, the home of a 13-week Lost seminar. Be prepared to talk about more than Jack’s propensity for crying and Sawyer’s offensive nicknames for the other Lostaways, though. Topics include thematic complexity, mechanical complexity, literary references and philosophies. The course culminates with students pitching an idea for a television series to the rest of their classmates.

9. Goldberg’s Canon: Makin’ Whoopi (Bates)

whoopi.jpgIf you’re excited about Whoopi Goldberg’s The View debut, it’s too bad you missed out on Bates College’s “Goldberg’s Canon: Makin’ Whoopi,” the only course anywhere (that I could find) dedicated to the former Caryn Johnson. As far as I can tell, the last time the class was offered was the 2003-04 school year, so anyone wanting to discuss her “controversial persona as an antagonistic public figure” (so says the syllabus) is out of luck for now.

10. Muppet Magic: Jim Henson’s Art (UC-Santa Cruz)

muppets.jpgFor some reason, I feel like the ratio of mental_floss readers who grew up watching and learning from Sesame Street is probably high. Thus, by my theory, most of us would be thrilled to count Theater Arts 80L, “Muppet Magic: Jim Henson’s Art” at the University of California Santa Cruz as part of our course load. The class studies how Muppets have changed television, film and art since Jim Henson created them.

11. Getting Dressed (Princeton)

fashion.jpgSeriously, some days getting dressed takes a lot more effort than it should. Enter Princeton’s “Getting Dressed” class, a freshmen-only course that lets students discuss controversial topics such as jeans, baseball caps, tattoos, flip-flops and Chuck Taylors. It’s more complicated than just figuring out what to wear in the morning, though. The class discussed how people use fashion to do everything from study history to assess character. Although it doesn’t appear that the class is offered any longer, Princeton does offer other interesting-sounding freshmen seminars, including “Google and Ye Shall Find?” and “Good to be Shifty: American Swindlers.”

12. Biblical Model for Home and Family (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary)

A real controversy exists around the “Biblical Model for Home and Family” course at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The class, for females only, teaches cooking, sewing, and says that wives should submit graciously to their husbands. OK, what I said at the beginning of this article was wrong: I’d much rather sit through “Research Methods and Theory” than learn how to “submit graciously.”

So, what’s the craziest class you’ve ever taken?

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Comments (181)

  1. Last year I was out in Berkely, CA for an internship with LBNL, and I learned that they had a bunch of those classes (like the Simpsons one) – apparently students can come up with their own classes and then teach them (at least that’s what I think I remember), and it’s got a special name and everything. Unfortunately, as an engineering student, my class schedule has been pretty unforgiving with “fun” classes. I did however here of a really neat class in the philosophy dept. called “The Quest” or something crazy like that. …I wonder if it’s too late to switch to Indiana and change my major to Harry Potter…hey, it worked for Will Shortz.

    posted by Lindsay D on 10-4-2007 at 8:19 am

  2. Just to clarify, I didn’t mean that Will S. majored in HP…just that he created his own major…but as this is the _floss community, I’m sure that this clarification isn’t really necessary.

    posted by Lindsay D on 10-4-2007 at 8:20 am

  3. I took History of the Future, back when I was a freshman and needed to fill my history gen ed requirement…

    posted by erm on 10-4-2007 at 8:22 am

  4. The History of Cross Dressing. It was a class for freshmen.

    posted by Lisa on 10-4-2007 at 8:22 am

  5. i took a “Violence as Entertainment” class in college. we watched short clips of movies with various bits removed/isolated to see how those bits influenced the viewer. it was actually pretty interesting stuff: 1) you will rarely find a still shot in any movie made in the past 10 years (violent or not) that lasts longer than 10 seconds, 2) imagination is the cheapest special effect, the brain can take a string of sequences and fill in the gaps quite nicely so you see: an axe in the air, the victim screaming face, the axe comes down, the axe comes back up all bloody. your brain turns this into “i just saw someone get an axe in thier head.” maybe i’m the only one interested in this though…

    posted by mri on 10-4-2007 at 8:28 am

  6. I had the opportunity to take a course called Star Trek and the Modern Man (cup.edu) unfortunately that was the last semester it was offered since that prof retired. Nothing like watching old Trek episodes and analyzing them in a modern context.

    posted by Brent on 10-4-2007 at 8:34 am

  7. At Temple University I took:

    UFOs & Alien Abduction with David Jacobs, Phd.

    We also had a horror film analysis class.

    Oh, and a game design class where we played musical chairs and did interpretive dance.

    posted by Adam on 10-4-2007 at 8:36 am

  8. In college I took a Sociology of Film class. Thanks to the professor’s genre preference we watched Dirty Harry films and a lot of mobster films.
    Unfortunatly this professor was THEEEE most boring man in the world (and a slow talker). Can you believe I flunked?!?!

    I also took “African Americans in American Film” class. The best class ever! Watching those grainy blaxploitation films was awesome.

    posted by Sweet Pea on 10-4-2007 at 8:38 am

  9. Mysticism and Psychic Reasoning at Slippery Rock University. We actually had our auras read…

    posted by Yerg on 10-4-2007 at 8:39 am

  10. David Jacobs @ Temple U! Man, I almost forgot about that class.

    I briefly considered staying in academia, but decided against it. If I were to teach a fun class, it would be the history of the bicycle. Engineering, women’s suffrage, the Good Roads Movement..there is a lot going on. For extra credit a student could ride a century.

    posted by fixedgear on 10-4-2007 at 8:46 am

  11. I only went once, but “Entrepreneurship Today” (or something like that) was my wackiest class. We went around the room and talked about what businesses we’d started. I had not started any businesses, making this line of questioning uncomfortable.

    One guy said, “I can’t go into it here, but I’m working on some stuff that will revolutionize the railroad industry.”

    The railroad industry awaits the revolution.

    posted by Jason on 10-4-2007 at 9:01 am

  12. I took a class on the Western genre at (ironically) Western Michigan University. It was great– read a bunch of Louis L’Amour, watched a bunch of John Wayne movies… Did my paper for that class on how Westerns are dealt with in Children’s Picture Books (in case anyone is interested, they are universally made “politically correct” — no white male main characters unless they are taking care of babies,)

    posted by Merv on 10-4-2007 at 9:12 am

  13. A couple summers ago Harvard sent me a catalog of summer classes I could take. I distinctly remember one of them being a philosophy class on Bob Dylan lyrics. And at my school, there is an Ethics in Sexuality class, and the last line of the class description states “Student participation is required.” Just caught my attention…

    posted by Katie B on 10-4-2007 at 9:19 am

  14. At New Mexico State University I took an Honors class titled “Film as Literature, Literature as Film” it was brilliant, we read stuff like “Fahrenheit 411″ and then watched the movie to compare the two based on story and societal influence at the time both were released. I also had a class called “Brewing Science and Society” it was a Chemical Engineering class for beer brewing. It was tough as hell but our projects consisted of drinking beer and brewing it, we even got to sample beer in class. When I told a friend from UNM about it he told me I didn’t go to a real school!

    posted by Jess on 10-4-2007 at 9:32 am

  15. I’m too old for college now, but the University of Alabama is offering a course called “The Gospel of Star Wars”.

    posted by Regina on 10-4-2007 at 9:44 am

  16. When I was in school at UNCG, there was a Science Fiction class taught by the great Orsen Scott Card. I also took a Detective Fiction class. We drew pictures of what Mickey Spillane would look like as a pirate. Did you know that M. S. was in the circus? He did trampoline stunts. Go figure.

    posted by Jenny on 10-4-2007 at 10:32 am

  17. Oh, and there was a class studying the philosophy and culture of the Dead-Head movement.

    posted by Jenny on 10-4-2007 at 10:33 am

  18. I took a freshman seminar called “The History of Chocolate.” Taste-tests included! Best class I ever took, ever.

    posted by bryn on 10-4-2007 at 10:40 am

  19. My Final semester, I took for extra credit an honors course covering J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. Being a fan, this class was worth the extra tuition. I was lucky enough to have that course as my final Final exam of my college career.

    posted by Thaylok on 10-4-2007 at 10:47 am

  20. Social Constructs of Serial Killers in Post-Modern America. Taken at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). We read serial killer novels and watched movies like Se7en and Copy Cat.

    posted by Mike on 10-4-2007 at 10:55 am

  21. Arthur and His Knights….everything you ever wanted to read or see about King Arthur including Camelot and Monty Python’s The Holy Grail…(class was packed that day!)

    posted by Jen on 10-4-2007 at 10:55 am

  22. Oooh…I would love to take a class on serial killers. The Simpsons one sounds great too!! I took a class titled “Bad Girls in Film” in college. We watched lots of Film Noir stuff like Gilda and Double Indemnity. We also watched Foxy Brown, Klute, and, of course, Thelma and Louise.

    posted by Abbasmurf on 10-4-2007 at 11:01 am

  23. Sigh… most of these subjects didn’t exist when I went to college, much less a class about them! The strangest class I took was Utopian Communities and Communal Living. Unless there’s another I forgot.

    posted by Miss Cellania on 10-4-2007 at 11:13 am

  24. It was only in high school but “Science Fiction English” was one of my favourites. We did a group project on Army of Darkness. Really can you have more fun than that in school.

    posted by Lisa on 10-4-2007 at 11:14 am

  25. Desire… An English class at Cornell looking at desire and sex in literature.. i don’t remember much about the class, but I do remember watching clips of the Paris Hilton sex video and writing a paper tying together Plato and Deep Throat…

    posted by JS on 10-4-2007 at 11:21 am

  26. I took Christian Sexuality – not as much of an oxymoron as I thought!

    posted by Melissa on 10-4-2007 at 11:39 am

  27. “Teen Films of the 80′s and 90′s” at LIU Brooklyn. From Fast Times at Ridgemont High –> Heathers –> Clueless, with a whole unit on John Hughes. Best. Class. Ever.

    posted by Christin on 10-4-2007 at 11:47 am

  28. Christin, I would kill to take that class. Possibly with a Drano cocktail.

    posted by Stacy on 10-4-2007 at 12:04 pm

  29. I attend Hastings College in Nebraska and they’re offering a class about Seinfeld.

    posted by Sara on 10-4-2007 at 12:16 pm

  30. Film Studies 150: Topics in Film Genre: The Pornographic Film

    Yes, I spent a quarter of my life watching 9 hours of porn a week for a grade. (It did require 50+ pages of journals and a research paper, so it wasn’t all… you know… just watching porn.)

    I’ve also taken two other genre classes:
    FS 143- Science Fiction Film
    FS 144- The Horror Film

    Man… Film Studies at UC Santa Barbara was kind to me.

    posted by Eric Negendank on 10-4-2007 at 12:24 pm

  31. My first semester at CWRU, I took a class called Flight: From Fantasy to Reality. It touched on topics like the evolution of bird flight and the history of aviation.
    This semester, I’m in another interesting class about, well, the origins of life, the universe, and everything. It’s awesome. Although we’re mostly focusing on the universe part, with some emphasis on life.

    posted by Meli on 10-4-2007 at 2:23 pm

  32. At Asbury Seminary I took a Storytelling class where we listened to the prof tell stories for a week. We also got to write a fairy tale from scratch and watch movies. We got to create our own syllabus too. I was able to read East of Eden, Huck Finn, The Sun Also Rises and other great novels. I followed that up with an independent study on religious and moral content in the Simpsons. Pretty much, I got credit for watching cartoons and reading great books all summer.

    posted by Josh on 10-4-2007 at 2:41 pm

  33. At Arizona State I took “Puppetry,” which consisted of us making hand and finger puppets, and then performing with them. We even got a snack time every class, it was just like kindergarten.
    ASU also offers a class about the Beatles, and one all about fire.

    posted by gibson8tor on 10-4-2007 at 3:45 pm

  34. Just so you know, the classes at UC Berkeley that are taught by students are called DeCals. They are sponsored by a faculty member and are taken for usually 1-2 credits pass/not pass. The classes include the Simpsons one, as well as a variety of other topics students are interested in, such as the Sex and the City DeCal, the Wine Tasting DeCal, the Physics of Beer Pong DeCal, the Beatles DeCal, a Tolkien DeCal…the list goes on and on. They really range in variety too, you can google it and check out the website. There is a huge amount of them, and they are a great way to make sure you are over the minimum unit requirement :)

    posted by Allison on 10-4-2007 at 4:03 pm

  35. I go to the university of north texas and they offer music theory of frank zappa durring the summer sessions. Word on the streets is that it’s really hard, and that’s from music students.

    posted by natalie on 10-4-2007 at 5:35 pm

  36. In the late 90s I had an Art History class at UC Santa Cruz about porn. It was called “Sex Work: The Labor of Pornography.” The professor had stripped to pay for grad school… We watch porn in class and for homework (mostly things like “Behind the Green Door”). For our final paper we had to review a film… I rented “Pulp Friction” from the local video store…

    posted by polaroidgirl on 10-4-2007 at 5:38 pm

  37. I taught a class called Sexual Health and Contraception. The men’s basketball and football teams filled most of my student roster. Unfortunately, the class was eventually cancelled because the psychology dept decided it wasn’t REAL psychology. If they had only been there for some of our discussions…

    posted by Lauren on 10-4-2007 at 9:00 pm

  38. I go to University of Cincinnati. I’m in the honors program and each quarter we get the oppurtunity to take a “Special Topics” course. Last fall was a course on slasher films. I wish I had taken that one but I had too many other classes!

    posted by Lea on 10-4-2007 at 9:05 pm

  39. I’m currently a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder and one of the better Professors here teaches a series of three courses on British Fanstasy series. The classes are three credits apiece counting towards upper level writing for engineers. The first course is on Lord of the Rings, the second on The Chronicles of Narnia, and the third on Harry Potter. They are really excellent classes restricted (mostly)to upper level engineering students.

    posted by Jessie K on 10-4-2007 at 9:18 pm

  40. Rutgers University

    Medievalism in Science Fiction and Fantasy (Spring of ’03 – very fun and cool)

    The Meaning and Collecting of Things
    (Spring of ’02 – weird, but with lots of field trips)

    posted by Bob on 10-4-2007 at 9:31 pm

  41. WAYYYYYY back in the early ’70′s, when I was at the University of Houston, there was an actual class about the study of sexuality through film. Basically, it involved watching porn (“Behind the Green Door”, “Deep Throat”) and commenting and writing critiques. Remember – at this time, porn was making a fairly good move into the darn-near mainstream. There were film-festivals involving porn at several universities that I knew of. The only reason that the class at the U of H was not ridiculously over-enrolled was that it was held at 7:00 am. M-W-F.

    posted by Larriann on 10-4-2007 at 10:21 pm

  42. The only A+ I got at Rice was in Cult Films. Here’s the definition: A cult film is a movie that you understand such that, when you meet a guy in the airport who also understands it, you are instant friends and can sit around in the airport bar for hours talking about that movie. I wrote my term paper on “The Fisher King.” (I was in college).

    I also took a course in Tolkien that was a serious course on a medievelist. That didn’t strike me as a weird course for Rice to offer. (Not that it matters, but I was a physics major. I usually preferred my electives.)

    posted by Matt on 10-4-2007 at 10:23 pm

  43. Hey Natalie, I went to UNT! I was an elementary ed major so I really didn’t get to take any extra classes. I always wanted to take the sign language course, but I could never fit it into my schedule. I did really enjoy taking Art for Elem. Ed majors. We got to do kids art projects, and the teacher was really nice. I also took Theater Appreciation. We went to see a theatrical production every other week- and then discussed why we liked it or not the next week, fun and easy! :)

    posted by greenstrawberries on 10-4-2007 at 11:47 pm

  44. A few years ago, I took “1950′s Underground” at the Peninsula College in Port Angeles. We basically studied the major movements of the 50′s: Beat poetry, Jazz, film noir, etc. My absolute favorite part was the two weeks we got to watch cheesy horror B-movies and “Kiss Me Deadly”. Best class ever, though it doesn’t count towards my AA.

    posted by heather on 10-5-2007 at 12:24 am

  45. Passive Analysis of Visual Iconography

    Class in The Simpsons that exemplified the list above. Hilarious. They just sat and watched Itchy and Scratch cartoons.

    posted by Xander on 10-5-2007 at 7:26 am

  46. Back in the 70s, Florida Presbyterian College (now Eckerd College) prided itself on innovation. We took an interim course (month of January) on Fantasy Literature where we build a huge plastic inflatable in which to hold classes. But the best was Dudley DeGroot’s Dramatic Ethnology in which we read Children of Sanchez and other sociological classics and then “acted” out the cultural norms.

    posted by Alice on 10-5-2007 at 8:19 am

  47. What about the 2pac course at Harvard?

    posted by Sausagehandz on 10-5-2007 at 8:34 am

  48. I went to U C Irvine, and while I was there i took a few ridiculous classes….I took a class about the matrix as a freshman, a class about apocalyptic cinema, and a class called Sociology 69, the sociology of sexuality where we watched porn and had a sex shop come talk about sex toys and give out free ones…for my final project I watched 7 hours of porn with a girl from my class and then made a cd called voices of orgasm, which consisted of girls orgasming….all this even though I was an engineer major…gotta love college!

    posted by AO on 10-5-2007 at 9:40 am

  49. I took a course at Southern Methodist University (SMU) that was a film class comparing Westerns to Science Fiction Genres. ie. manifest destiny v. ‘the final frontier’ or how Han Solo was a cowboy. it’s been 10 years, and i don’t want to bore you w/ a dissertation.

    posted by Vann on 10-5-2007 at 9:59 am

  50. We had a class on Dr. Seuss this semester. There’s a Harry Potter class and next semester there’s a class about ‘graphic novels’ aka comic books. I love the english department!

    posted by Kelsey on 10-5-2007 at 10:33 am

  51. for the record I failed swimnastics

    posted by Dave on 10-5-2007 at 1:20 pm

  52. One of the most challenging college courses I have taken so far is Indie Rock: from Punk to Post-Modern. I am a history major and it was cross-listed as a music, American studies, and history class so I enjoyed the histroy aspect but was lost on the more theoretical musical aspects. The required listening was awesome – The Left of the Dial box set and a Punk box set but I don’t remember the title.

    posted by Amanda on 10-5-2007 at 1:40 pm

  53. My brother took a “Beers of the World” class at RIT

    posted by Sarah on 10-5-2007 at 2:16 pm

  54. I am taking Media Studies: Jim Morrison and the Doors at Plymouth State University.

    posted by Paul on 10-5-2007 at 2:35 pm

  55. Oregon State also currently has a class on Sex In the City, its the most popular class in OSU history

    posted by Alan on 10-5-2007 at 3:47 pm

  56. Kent State University main campus offers a class called “Adult Swim”. It basically amounts to nothing more than watching the cartoons in class for a whole semester then writing one 5 page paper at the end on a topic of choice. Note* since Adult Swim tends to jump around and utilize any issue or idea that seems funny, the final paper encourages (directly from the syllabus) “Your final paper requires: Wacky, Crazy, Unorthodox, Far-Fetched and Absurd thinking” Fun class.

    posted by Matt on 10-5-2007 at 4:23 pm

  57. I take a class at Columbia called “Clint Eastwood”. You more or less watch Clint Eastwood movies for 4 hours a week and write (not that much though) about it. It’s worth 4 credits and it’s the greatest class ever.

    posted by Jim on 10-5-2007 at 4:27 pm

  58. Cornell has a Wine Tasting class and when you pass that you have the option to take Beer Tasting

    posted by Kevi on 10-5-2007 at 6:56 pm

  59. At Roger Williams U in Bristol, RI. The Art of Rock & Roll…. Great class. Listen to music by decade starting in the 50s through present day…. Some people actually didnt get an A… All you had to do was show up…. Hash brownies not sold with the text at the bookstore….

    posted by Nate on 10-5-2007 at 9:12 pm

  60. Last year, I took a course entitled “Developmental Tragectories in Harry Potter” at Russell Sage College in Troy, NY. Take child and adolescent psych, Harry Potter, and a teacher who’s equal parts Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Trelawney, and you have one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. The professor was able to find sex in EVERYTHING.

    posted by Steph on 10-5-2007 at 9:47 pm

  61. Two years ago, I took a psychology course in Seinfeld (“Social Psychology and Seinfeld”) where we watched episodes of Seinfeld and then discussed all the social psychological concepts about each character/phrase/situation. We watched two episodes a day, and it was Seinfeld-wonderfulness.

    posted by Sarah Lake on 10-5-2007 at 10:24 pm

  62. In my final semester at Michigan State University I took Both “Myth and Tolkien” which consisted of reading the “Lord of The Rings” trilogy among other Tolkien writings, and “Animation in America” which covered relevant American comic books (my spring break homework assignment was to watch the movie “300″)

    posted by Chris on 10-6-2007 at 9:27 am

  63. how about, Religion: Johnny Depp?
    College of Mount Saint Vincent

    posted by brendan on 10-6-2007 at 10:14 am

  64. “Interesting and Edible Meats” at Cook College, Rutgers University in the early 1990′s. We slaughtered, butchered, cooked and ate a variety of different animals.

    posted by Eric on 10-6-2007 at 12:08 pm

  65. “Writing on Drugs” at Butler University. Also, a class devoted to Pink Floyd. Unfortunately, I didn’t take them in the same semester; that would’ve made things far more interesting.

    posted by Sarah on 10-6-2007 at 4:26 pm

  66. At UC Santa Cruz a few years ago they offered a class called “Queer Theory and Star Trek.” It was a year before I arrived, but I’m sure it was a fun time. Gotta love classes offered at Banana Slug U.

    posted by Ari on 10-7-2007 at 6:19 am

  67. These would all be great classes to take…as long as my father owned the company where I was applying for a job.

    posted by Jay on 10-7-2007 at 10:51 am

  68. I took a class at Iowa State on Science Fiction. It was great! We read a ton of great sci-fi, discussed them in class, and the final project let us present a book of our choice that hadn’t been included in the syllabus. There were diary entries and papers, but it was basically a sci-fi book club for credit.

    posted by Yonit on 10-7-2007 at 2:51 pm

  69. Philosophy and Star Trek at Georgetown!
    It’s awesome. We just watch star trek… and then read philosophy.
    pwnt!

    posted by Jeff on 10-7-2007 at 8:11 pm

  70. At Purdue Psych 444 was about 40% watching porn and I had a midevil Philosophy class with Prof. Kermit Scott who is the real life influence for Kermit the Frog, hard to focus on Aquinas when your picturing your professor on a stump singing and playing the banjo.

    posted by Jim on 10-7-2007 at 10:09 pm

  71. I went to the University of Minnesota and took the following four classs while there-

    Wine Tasting (You learn about how wine is made, the different kinds of grapes, and drink a lot of wine).

    Circus Performance (You learn how to tumble, jungle, to the trapeze, clown, and spanish web).

    The Physics of Comic Books (The professor is a published author on the subject in both Wizards Magazine and his own books. We talked about all the basic physics principals and which super heroes use them. Ex: How much strength does Superman need to leap over a building in a single bound? Or if the Flash really ran as fast as he did, would he breath in so much oxygen that he would consume the atmosphere?)

    The History of Rock n’ Roll (Basically studying rock music, listening to rock music, and talking about rock music).

    posted by Daniel on 10-8-2007 at 3:22 am

  72. Oberlin College has an experimental college, in which students teach classes. This spring, I’ll be teaching “Buns of Steel: the culture of the workout video”

    posted by sara on 10-8-2007 at 11:51 am

  73. ‘Walt Disney’s America’ at Randolph-Macon College. We studied Disney films for a semester. Nice.

    posted by Sarah on 10-8-2007 at 3:07 pm

  74. I’ve heard that Princeton also has a wine-tasting course. That would be a nice way to unwind after an incredibly stressful day discussing the change in the window display at J. Crew.

    posted by Yalie on 10-9-2007 at 9:54 am

  75. Hi y’all. I’m 70 years old and didn’t get to take any of those interesting classes in college, but you are making me want to go back to school!! I have taken a class or two (or three) over the years, just because I like to go to school. I wish or local college offered some interesting ones like these and maybe I would finish my degree. Hmmm. I did have to immitate a peacock and another time a ripening tomato in auditions for plays (at Baylor). That is as weird as is got back in the ’50′s.

    posted by Nancy on 10-10-2007 at 7:12 am

  76. Vampire Literature.

    posted by Q1Go on 10-10-2007 at 11:17 am

  77. at Hofstra University I took
    How the Simpsons Aaved American Lit
    It counted as one of my english classes
    we watch the simpson and movies
    great class

    posted by HU on 10-10-2007 at 2:38 pm

  78. Wow… can I just say that I live equidistant between Bowdoin and Bats, and I have never heard of those courses?! Since I am a junior and beginning to look at colleges (just kidding, I have been looking at colleges since I was big enough to be toted around by my parents to all these universities), it really makes me want to consider a more local school!

    Then again, I would definitely keep on track for Columbia if they are still offering the Clint Eastwood class…

    Oh, by the way, Stacy, you should do a follow-up post on wacky majors! My personal favorite: University of Nottingham’s Robin Hood Studies. I swear, it exists!

    posted by Allison on 10-10-2007 at 5:49 pm

  79. I think someone mentioned that Cornell had a wine tasting class – but apparently it’s very difficult, as you have to know the makeup of all of the different varieties of wine. After you pass that there’s the beer tasting class, and passing that allows you to take a vodka tasting class. Fun!

    posted by Elisa on 10-10-2007 at 7:51 pm

  80. At SUNY Potsdam a they offer a course called “Exploring Life on other Planets.” The course envolves studying how different clutures around the world throughout time veiwed the heavens and related those beliefs into their everyday practices. I took the course because I thought we’d be discussing aliens and weather Chewie was part Ewok, not how various indignious people thought the stars were talking to them. Yeah, I dropped that one.

    posted by Matt on 10-11-2007 at 8:58 am

  81. Also, my sister is a grad student at Ithaca and she has a friend that is getting his PhD in Tolken.

    posted by Matt on 10-11-2007 at 9:02 am

  82. “Das Capital” as literature.
    No, seriously.

    posted by Carston Bates on 10-12-2007 at 2:28 pm

  83. I went to the University of California at Davis back in the eighties. Took a Tractor Driving class.

    posted by Kris on 10-17-2007 at 12:02 pm

  84. Cursing and Swearing – Macalester College….

    posted by Tony on 10-24-2007 at 3:19 pm

  85. I went to college from 1981 to 1985. In 1984, the Philosophy department offered a class called “1984,” a study of George Orwell’s novel as it related to the current culture. Perhaps not surprisingly, there were many correlations, and even more today.

    posted by Li on 10-26-2007 at 12:28 pm

  86. I attend a business school but my friend’s major is underwater basket weaving. His courses combine economics and commercialism in the modern day world in addition to tons of arts & crafts.

    posted by Niki on 10-27-2007 at 4:35 pm

  87. The classes weren’t that weird, but they had great names: ‘Insects and Our Society’ and ‘Fungi: Friends and Foes.’ I was able to relate both of them to my anthropology major at UGA. The entomology class was packed, about 200 students. The professor would show movie clips, everything from horror movies to documentaries. So great.

    posted by Nat X on 10-29-2007 at 9:21 am

  88. I went to UNT (University of North Texas) and took a few interesting courses:

    * Wine and Beverage Survey – this was taught by a professor who graduated from Cornell, known for their rigorous Hotel Management program. We literally drank samples of wines, liquors, liquers, beers and spirits for an hour and 20 minutes, then had INSANE tests on them. Seriously – not as fun as you’d think, and you never drank enough to get a remote buzz. Still, the professor was probably one of my favorites at UNT. The beer rep guys were fun too – I especially remember when the Budweiser guys came cuz we sampled B to the E before it came out. Remember that beer/energy drink? It was good in theory; terrible upon execution. We also got cool stuff from reps, like beer-flavored chapstick.

    * Pop Music in American Culture – THIS IS FALSE ADVERTISING! I hated this course. You think pop music is Britney Spears and the boyband movement? No, it is bluegrass. It is vaudeville. It is also taught by an evil professor.

    posted by Juwon on 10-29-2007 at 12:59 pm

  89. University of Nebraska at Omaha had a class on Tolkien last year as well.

    posted by Rose on 10-29-2007 at 1:12 pm

  90. I’m not sure if anyone posted this yet… I never took this course. I wish I could, though! But, I’m pretty sure Northwestern in Illinois offers a course about the Beatles.

    posted by Rosie on 11-8-2007 at 3:41 pm

  91. 1979 Syracuse University – similar to no. 1, The Genre of the Horror Film.

    In prep school 1978 – an semester seminar, only 10 students studying only Alfred Hitchcock, and using the book “Hitchcock”, which is a transcript of a lengthy and deep interview between Hitchcock and Francois Truffaut.

    Both of these courses involved watching many films as well as dicussion and analysis. So cool it didn’t even feel like studying, not that studying isn’t cool, but when I was 18 years old it didn’t seem very cool.

    posted by Curt on 11-24-2007 at 3:28 pm

  92. Geography of Sex at Towson University.

    posted by Laura on 12-1-2007 at 5:43 pm

  93. I majored in American Studies at Brigham Young University and took some pretty awesome classes:

    * Disney and the American Imagination – we looked at Disney and his work from birth to death. It makes me look at Disneyland in a whole new light.

    * San Francisco and the American Experience – looking at different facets of San Fran as a microcosm of the American experience.

    * History of Pop Culture – breaking down pop culture by studying different mediums in their inception, heyday and present state.

    posted by Christa on 12-5-2007 at 12:36 am

  94. Oh, yeah, I forgot one – Humanities of the ’50s and ’60s, which included everything from analyzing the Beatles in light of artistic movements to watching mental hygiene films and studying beat poetry. Our class final was a beatnik party at my professor’s home, where we donned black and berets, read beat poetry and ate authentic 50′s dishes like jello molds. Pretty much the best final ever!

    posted by Christa on 12-5-2007 at 12:45 am

  95. I currently attend UMass Amherst and, although I missed out on taking it this year, a course is offered in the Japanese department: “Anime and Manga.” I’ll be sure to take it next year. ^^

    posted by Rika on 12-9-2007 at 9:29 pm

  96. In the fall of ’99, St. Lawrence University offered a really fun course in Milleniallist Literature. The course was about the turn of the millenium fears spilling into literature outlets– we watched the X Files movie, read books on Y2K preparedness (many of which were really campy), read novels that expressed a variety of end-of-the-world scenarios and discussed how human cultures placed significance on these major time-period changes (for ill, mostly). It sounds really dark, but it was a really fun course offered by a truly awesome and fun professor. I mean, how often have you come into a class where the prof has drawn a picture of the “seven headed beast” on the chalkboard with his own face in place of the heads (One of the days we were discussing Revelations). Good stuff.

    posted by ACute Angle on 12-21-2007 at 8:26 am

  97. last semester i took….

    Jesus: Real to Reel

    All we did was watch movies about Jesus.
    It totally counted for my theology credit.
    oh. that was at loyola chicago.

    posted by ali on 12-25-2007 at 4:21 am

  98. I’m taking a class on Bob Dylan’s Lyrics.

    posted by Meliza on 12-25-2007 at 5:51 pm

  99. At Florida State, there are plenty of horror film analysis classes, along with analysis of super heroes, and survey of underground music in America!

    posted by weeble warble on 12-28-2007 at 3:07 pm

  100. At Emerson College in Boston where I still am there are some sweet classes.

    I’ve taken for example:
    Stand Up Comedy (a level 400 class in Writing the highest level undergrad)… basically laughed the entire day and wrote jokes and watched stand up.

    Politics and Comedy Subversive Laughter
    Watching YouTube clips of comedians and political comedians and listening to old comedy records

    Advanced Creative Writing Comedy
    Wrote a ridiculous TV pilot, with a group and watched a 3D version of the three stooges.

    Listening to Music

    Local Action Global Change….

    Hurrah

    posted by Erika on 12-28-2007 at 3:18 pm

  101. Dana College–Blair, Nebraska

    The Lotus and the Pen

    1/3 Eastern Film
    1/3 Eastern Writing
    1/3 Yoga

    posted by Kelly on 12-28-2007 at 4:20 pm

  102. Four years ago Northern Illinois University I took an entire class on Michael Moore’s books and films. The last week of class we had a conference call with him where he alluded to making his now popular movie, Sicko.
    .

    posted by Pegs on 12-28-2007 at 4:20 pm

  103. Ever notice in Chopping Mall there is absolutely no chopping? Just a bunch of lasers and pinchy claw hands. (Although the world’s worst nipple pinch, I’m sure)

    posted by Sara on 12-28-2007 at 6:02 pm

  104. I went to Washington College, a small, liberal arts school, in the mid nineties. I took a couple “interesting” classes. Generation X and their Elders was different. We compared baby boomer pop culture to genX pop culture. I remember actually enjoying my 7 page paper comparing Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville to the Rolling Stones Exile on Mainstreet. Seriously, how many courses do you end up really enjoying?

    “And I kept standing 6 feet 1, instead of 5 feet 2. And I loved my life, and I hated you.”

    posted by Nicole on 12-28-2007 at 6:27 pm

  105. Biology as a Social Weapon at Indiana University (Bloomington)…we learned about Hitler’s genetic experiments and about laws that Congress attempted to bring to fruition regarding welfare mothers’ rights to continue having children (versus being subjected to various forms of sterilization)…of course, IU offers an “individualized major” (which means, make it up yourself), but I still draw on that class as being one of the most unique I’ve known.

    posted by Nitrodigger on 12-28-2007 at 9:26 pm

  106. Wow, lot of good ones here. It makes my “Scary Monsters” class at University of Wisconsin-Madison seem conservative!

    Although that class was great for senior year, basically read fun books like Hobbit, Frankenstein and Beowulf. All taught by one of my favorite profs, Chris Livanos.

    posted by Kevin on 12-28-2007 at 10:06 pm

  107. During my last semester at the University of Oregon, I took a class on the evolution of the superhero. The entire book list for the course was comic books.

    It was awesome. I heard tell that the professor who taught it was going to offer one on the evolution of the supervillain next, which makes me sad I graduated last June.

    posted by Caitlin on 12-29-2007 at 1:21 am

  108. Last spring semester I took a class called “Aliens in Fiction and Non-Fiction” at Dartmouth College. It was offered by the comparative literature department and taught by a Physics professor. We read a sampling of classic science fiction novels and watched a lot of movies.

    It was a fun class, but reading science fiction has lost some of the guilty pleasure now that I can convince myself it’s literature…

    posted by Laura on 12-29-2007 at 7:01 am

  109. Took a couple of “interesting” classes in my senior year at Bemidji State in MN:

    1. Techniques of Relaxation – One credit; lie on mattresses on the floor of the dance studio while learning about various relaxation techniques like yoga and the like. Sleeping is optional.

    2. History of Writing – One credit; no exams and assignments, just discussion.

    posted by synical on 12-29-2007 at 10:39 am

  110. I spent MANY years in college (I teach now, so I guess I’m still in school), and my all-time favorite has to be a wine tasting class I took at New College in Florida. We sat in a marble floored dining room overlooking Sarasota bay at sunset drinking wine. I still have my notes!

    posted by Jim on 12-29-2007 at 1:29 pm

  111. I currently attend Ohio University, and one of the most popular classes is History of Rock and Roll. It fills up minutes after registration begins (or so I’ve heard).

    posted by Laura on 12-29-2007 at 9:10 pm

  112. I can’t believe 100 plusreplies and no mention of Middle Tennessee’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Course.

    It was offerred twice when I was in Tennessee, the first time when I got there and the second time while I was in Iraq. I have never wanted to do long distance learning so much as I did that year.

    posted by Catherine on 12-30-2007 at 4:19 am

  113. Vampires in historical and cultural context. – Geo. Washington U. 1999

    One of the final classes was attending the Vampire Ballet at the Kennedy Center.

    posted by Julie on 12-30-2007 at 9:56 am

  114. At Syracuse I took a class called “Sexuality in Cinema” for my film degree and watched erotic films like last tango in paris. Good times.

    posted by Lindsey on 12-30-2007 at 9:44 pm

  115. I’ve always wonder how professors come up with ideas about certain topics for classes. For example, at R.I.T. we have a class about The Simpsons but I have yet to find it.

    posted by Yasser on 1-2-2008 at 9:25 pm

  116. At the University of Georgia I took:

    Birds of Our Lives

    Dinosaurs – Lifestyles of the Big and Famous in the Mesozoic

    posted by Hairy Dawg on 1-3-2008 at 11:10 am

  117. I enjoyed History of Popular Graphic Literature when I took it. One of our final essays was on Batman versus Superman.

    posted by Stephy on 1-3-2008 at 11:34 am

  118. For the record, Muppet Magic is actually harder than most other lower division classes. The professor (who, BTW, is insane … and not in a good way) requires a ton of work (I think there were four or five major essays, plus tests and a final project) to try and make up for the class’s appearance as “soft”. Also, the first half of the semester focuses on the history of puppetry, so it’s really more of a “Puppet Magic” class.

    Still, it was an awesome class; guest lecturers included Jerry Jewel (head writer for the Muppet Show; I actually got to shake hands and talk with him at a reception after class), Brian Froud (artist who created the imagery of Labrynth and Dark Crystal), and the lady who did the voice of Red Fraggle and made the puppets for Being John Malcovich (I forget her name, but she was cool too). For my final project, several other students and I sewed our own muppets, and made a short video with them.

    Go Banana Slugs! (UCSC Mascott)

    posted by Jeremy on 1-3-2008 at 11:57 am

  119. University of Hawaii at Manoa classes I always wanted to enroll in:

    LLEA 270 Freaks and Monsters

    HIST 468 Viva Las Vegas!

    BOT 135 Magical Mushrooms and Mystical Molds

    REL 353 Witches and Witchcraft

    posted by Sassmo on 1-3-2008 at 11:57 am

  120. i took The Art of Play at NYU’s Gallatin School. We would play like children and discuss how important play is to a child’s growth. For the final, we had to perform an act of “play”. Some of the finals were rolling in paint, having a tea party, or showing a slide show they made; I had the class play a game of Tag.

    posted by Ross on 1-3-2008 at 11:58 am

  121. Two of the twelve are Maine schools (Bowdoin and Bates)… something crazy’s going on up here in my home state.

    posted by Chris on 1-3-2008 at 12:13 pm

  122. The Minneapolis College of Art and Design teaches a course called “The Art of Pornography” in which porn is looked at and assessed.

    posted by Alex on 1-3-2008 at 12:20 pm

  123. I took a couple of good ones…. America through Baseball.
    Sports and Spirituality
    Good ole Honors classes at La Salle University!

    posted by J on 1-3-2008 at 12:48 pm

  124. I took a class at Tufts University called Statistical Analysis of Baseball where we discussed sabermetrics. It met once a week in top floor of the library, and basically the class boiled down to a lot of yankee and Jeter bashing, but with stats to back up all of the talk. We learned that, statistically, Jeter was the worst short stop in the AL, as well as how to draft for fantasy baseball leagues. The class was very math and statistics oriented, and overall was a lot of fun. Plus, as an added bonus, I transferred to another school, and upon transferring, I received 300-level statistics credit. Not bad at all.

    posted by Jeremy on 1-3-2008 at 12:52 pm

  125. kenston bombers (old airplanes)

    posted by george on 1-3-2008 at 1:22 pm

  126. SUNY Buffalo in NY offers Magic,Witchcraft& Sorcery as one of its anthropology courses. Beat that!

    posted by Mikhail on 1-3-2008 at 1:44 pm

  127. Junior Level English class at Stephen F Austin, Science Fiction Literature

    We read Frankenstein and selections from several years (81-82ish) Hugo Winners anthologies. Needless to say I read every Hugo story and was introduced to many great writers that I had never seen before. I only made a C in the class but it was very enjoyable (although looking at the stories from a strictly literature point of view did take some of the fascination away)

    Doug

    posted by Doug on 1-3-2008 at 1:50 pm

  128. I go to UC Berkeley and the system we have for students to teach their own courses is called the DeCal (Democratic Education at Cal). It’s a fantastic program and every university should have it.I’ve taught eight classes myself, from the study of Children’s Literature to the influence of Westerns on American culture.

    posted by Jorge on 1-3-2008 at 1:57 pm

  129. I took a class at the University of Alabama called “Zombies – The Undead in Literature and Film,” which culminated in a campus-wide zombie-walk during freshman orientation. It was glorious!

    posted by Chris on 1-3-2008 at 2:28 pm

  130. Took a gender studies class on Buffy the Vampire Slayer last year at UNCG…it was awesome!

    posted by Heather on 1-3-2008 at 4:27 pm

  131. I took a class at Seattle University entitled “Resisting the Matrix: Apocalyptic Traditions”. The first several weeks were spent analyzing “The Matrix” and relating it to the sections of the Bible usually deemed “prophetic” that turn out to be nothing of the sort. The Jesus link is also examined.

    The book “Unveiling Empire” by the professor Wes Howard Brook takes a very unique interpretation worth looking into.

    posted by ezaspi on 1-3-2008 at 4:54 pm

  132. No 24 based classes? I’m disappointed!

    posted by Surfup on 1-3-2008 at 6:06 pm

  133. One of my friends attending Sheridan College near Toronto is taking “Living with the Undead” next semester. It’s a course about vampires, he tells me.

    posted by Janna on 1-3-2008 at 6:58 pm

  134. there was a class offered on lil’ kim at syracuse! i think that takes the cake

    posted by frank on 1-4-2008 at 12:22 am

  135. You might be interested to know, I recently saw a writer from the Simpsons give a speech and he said the fact that they think “the philosophy of the simpsons” is something worth teaching is complete bs. It was really funny.

    posted by josh on 1-4-2008 at 10:56 am

  136. My MAJOR, when it comes up in conversation, leads most of those whom I speak with to believe I am joking. I am a Recreation, Sport, and Tourism major at the U of I. That’s right, the acronym is “ReST”. They changed it a few years ago because it sounded too “made up” and “lazy” when it was called Leisure Studies. :) The classes are all quite fun, though it highly resembles the coursework for a business-type degree… I have been considering sticking around the university to teach a course in ReST/Kinesiology titled “Lazer Tag – Foresight, Fitness, and Fun”

    posted by James on 1-4-2008 at 1:07 pm

  137. Amazing! I’m still waiting for “The psychology of Furries” and “Ethics in the Zombie Holcaust”

    posted by Students With Jobs on 1-9-2008 at 9:04 pm

  138. Here at Purdue I took a course on Vampires, which included weekly screenings of films (from Nosferatu to Buffy).
    Currently I’m in a class on Tolkien. There’s such a disparity between the students who saw the movies and like them, and the kids who speak Quenya, have read The Silmarillion twenty times, and were waiting for this class all their lives.

    posted by Ian on 1-17-2008 at 2:39 pm

  139. At the University of Las Vegas, Nevada a few years ago I took a class on anime in culture. It required a 15 page report on how anime reflects culture, and we also had a visit every month or so from either a prominent artist from Japan or a voice over actor from America.

    posted by Kristina D on 1-19-2008 at 12:47 am

  140. I finished off my undergrad career at the University of San Francisco with a class on Led Zeppelin.

    It was perfect timing- they announced and had their reunion concert during our semester

    posted by nisi on 2-4-2008 at 12:44 am

  141. I got to take some excellent classes when I was at William & Mary – my freshman seminar focused on singer/songwriters (homework: listen to Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, etc.), and my senior seminar was about the anthropology of alcohol. (Seriously. Best class ever!) A friend of mine also got to take a class focusing on the music of The Beatles.

    …Man, I miss college! ;)

    posted by RL on 7-13-2008 at 11:01 am

  142. When I was a junior, UNC offered a first-year seminar based on how Buffy the Vampire Slayer reflects communication between teenagers and adults. Not enough people signed up for it, and it was cancelled. Bummer.

    posted by Lucy on 9-29-2008 at 11:35 am

  143. Stacy,

    Your college – Iowa State – does have one of those classes – Sociology 219 – Courtship and Marriage, affectionately known as Woo and Screw

    posted by DennisP on 10-2-2008 at 2:49 pm

  144. My college, University of Pittsburgh has the following odd (but fun) classes:
    -Russian Fairy Tales
    -Vampires
    -Physics of Science Fiction
    -Japanese Tales of the Supernatural

    posted by Shanna on 10-2-2008 at 10:43 pm

  145. The University of Texas offered the “History of Rock N Roll,” a class on vampires, and a course on the linguistics of Elvish based on the writings of Tolkien. I was able to take the Rock class but it sucked because the prof was a grad student with a penchant for Riot Grrrl music and I learned nothing new. I’ve heard that it was much better under other profs. I wish they had the Zeppelin class! Ahh, college!

    posted by marj on 10-28-2008 at 6:40 pm

  146. The University of Maryland has plenty of interesting classes. Such as HLTH 377 “Human Sexuality” which goes in depth about many topics in sexual topics and issues with humans. KNES 287 “Sport in American Society” talks about current themes relating sport to our common lives and how it affects us. There are plenty more that I have not mentioned.

    posted by jb on 10-31-2008 at 12:02 am

  147. I once took a “South Park and Society” sociology course at Southern Utah University — a wonderful class, but the professor has since left the university.

    posted by Matthew Montgomery on 11-6-2008 at 3:05 pm

  148. I go to Rutgers University, and there are tons of interesting freshman-year seminars that you can take. This past semester, there was one on Yankee Stadium. Tehre;s also a lot of sex related classes, like class studying incest. This upcoming semester there will be a food-tasting class, a class about Dracula, and one on visual illusions.

    posted by JS on 11-9-2008 at 2:30 pm

  149. A couple years back at Middlebury College, I took Lego Robot Design. It was an entry level physics/engineering course where your final grade was based on how well your lego robot could perform certain tasks.

    posted by Marc on 11-9-2008 at 3:13 pm

  150. the best class i took in South Cali when i was college freshman was “Anime” class as part of Art courses. Damn, we watched a lot of anime movies and series, Dragon ball Z, Naruto, Yuyu Hakusho. we discussed characters and some hidden trivias. Homeworks are watching anime, half of the class we discuss about how good was the anime. I like anime and for me its like enjoying life than going to a class. We even had projects where you make your own anime with the group of 5 people each(I was the director/one of the artist/ and voice dub to the character) they provide us equipment studios, computer, sound labs to crate our own anime. Sweet.

    posted by jasper on 11-9-2008 at 3:37 pm

  151. This semester I’m enrolled in History 2230 at hte University of Missouri (MIzzou) – that would be Walt Disney and American Culture.

    I’ve also taken “Jazz, Pop, and Rock” and next semester i’m planning on taking Scuba Theory – not only will I get college credit, but i’ll also get scuba certified!

    posted by Amanda on 11-9-2008 at 3:42 pm

  152. I went to a small private school in TN. The best class I ever took was “Pop Theology.”

    Basically we covered all of the current, popular fads in religion. Like: The Left Behind Series and how they are the farthest things from the Bible. The contradicting nature of “The Purpose Driven Life.” We watched movies like Dogma, Monty Python and the Life of Brian, and The Passion.

    … Scientology, Church of LDS, The Secret, The Davinci Code…

    Best class of my college career; it was great debate fodder.

    posted by Mandy on 11-9-2008 at 3:51 pm

  153. Hollywood Amnesia–Texas State University (We watched films like Momento, Anastasia, Finding Nemo, 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, Suture, etc…) Interesting

    posted by Mary on 11-9-2008 at 4:09 pm

  154. The business school at Brigham Young University used to have a course called “Leadership” in which the stated premise was that by emulating the persona of Jesus Christ, you would be a more effective leader. I took the class, and they did make some good points, but I couldn’t get over thinking that Jesus never had to deal with negotiations, transacations, payrolls, HR issues, etc. For Him it was pretty much “my way or the highway.”

    posted by Jon on 11-9-2008 at 6:12 pm

  155. when i was at OSU i was in a class that is only offered in the fall called “The Vampire and its affect on western culture”. also Capital University in Columbus Ohio has a class on the Physics of Star Trek.

    posted by Hal on 11-9-2008 at 8:21 pm

  156. I was enrolled in the Muppet Magic class at UC Santa Cruz until my adviser told me that it was not going to cover the GE that I needed. But everyone that I know who took the class highly recommended it.

    posted by BE on 11-9-2008 at 8:33 pm

  157. These classes such as Simpson and Philosophy are known as decals at UC Berkeley. Many of these classes are taught in the evening by professors, graduate students, or any students who has an interest in teaching a special topic. A curriculum is required and needs to be approved before one can start a new class, and these classes range from learning Cantonese, to discussing Harry Potter, to incorporating The Simpsons and philosophical theories.

    posted by Grace on 11-9-2008 at 8:50 pm

  158. if they offered all these courses when back in my day i would have deffinately gone to university.

    and in response to the guy who claims his friend is taking “underwater basket weaving” HE’S PULLING YOUR LEG!!!!! that was a course that was fictionally made up over 20 years ago as a joke to the fact that nobody who was attending college their first year knew what the hell they were taking, except space.

    posted by Dana on 11-10-2008 at 7:04 pm

  159. FYI, I like the list but you should probably know that electronic music has extended well beyond C&C Music Factory.

    posted by Kevin on 11-11-2008 at 2:01 pm

  160. At the University of the Arts I took Karate for one credit and joined my roommate who was a film major for her Time class, which was all about time traveling, too interesting!!

    posted by Erika on 11-13-2008 at 2:07 pm

  161. Indiana State University – The Philosophy of Star Trek

    posted by Atlas on 11-30-2008 at 5:55 am

  162. University of Arizona – Slavic Folklore: Vampires and werewolves

    posted by Emily on 12-9-2008 at 6:21 am

  163. I go to College of the Ozarks, and we used to require capstone courses for juniors and seniors that changed every semester. There was one about the Harry Potter series, one about Tolkien, one about murder mysteries, etc. Unfortunately, the school changed the requirement at the end of my freshman year. I am sincerely disappointed that I don’t get to take a class in Harry Potter (I already have the textbooks!).

    posted by Kate on 12-10-2008 at 3:05 pm

  164. I was going to apply for my MBA program at one school that was previously affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but I changed my mind when I found out I would have to take “Ethics of the Bible”. Yikes!!

    posted by Amy on 12-16-2008 at 8:42 am

  165. At the much commented UCSC in 1974: Birth of a Poet, “taught” by the beat poet William Everson. No entrance requirements, no attendance records, no exit requirements. Just go listen and talk with a famous writer…At the behest of the admin he did add keeping a “dream journal” as a requirement, but I never remember my dreams so I felt compelled to write and read dada-punk poetry…

    posted by schip666 on 12-23-2008 at 9:33 pm

  166. There were courses at my friend’s college called “A History of the Furry Fandom” and “Appreciating the Comic Genius of the Three Stooges”.

    posted by Darryl on 12-29-2008 at 1:05 am

  167. A friend of mine who attended the University of Michigan on a football scholarship took this gem: Game Theory. The class played Candyland, Monopoly, Battleship, Risk, etc. Not sure if it’s saying anything, but he did say it was mostly populated by athletes…

    posted by Tweeder on 12-29-2008 at 1:55 am

  168. Hollins University in Roanoke, VA, offers a Philosophy of Star Trek course, among other unique classes.

    posted by C on 3-19-2009 at 10:14 am

  169. homer simpson’s america. it was an american studies class offered one semester at the university of alabama

    posted by grace on 9-3-2009 at 1:19 pm

  170. The University of New Mexico teaches a class called The Politics of Pornography which is still being offered this semester.

    posted by Frannie on 9-24-2009 at 3:24 am

  171. Trinity University in San Antonio, TX has a “History of Baseball” class which I was told was one of the hardest classes on campus. Angelo State University also has a “History of Rock and Roll” class which too is extremely difficult.

    posted by adam on 10-29-2009 at 1:36 am

  172. I’m slightly jealous of everyone here who took a fantasy or science fiction course, I have to admit.

    I don’t think that my institution (Grand Valley State University, located in Michigan) offers a ton of unique classes. However, my section of Studies in Fiction focused on vampire lit (we even read Twilight which irritated me to no end, but that’s another story), and my honors junior seminar class was titled Images of the Devil in Literature. I read a lot for that class, but it was still pretty interesting. I also have two professors who have wanted to hold a class where they tell all of their stories about their lives (and they have led some interesting lives), but I don’t think it’s going to happen before they retire.

    I think we also have a History of Witches/Witchcraft class available through the history department, but I have never taken it.

    posted by Stefanie on 1-6-2010 at 7:50 am

  173. I’m a senior in high school, and I’m taking classes on Lost, The Wire, and playing guitar

    posted by Ian on 2-26-2010 at 12:45 am

  174. I taught a Harry Potter class at DU–it was a good time. I also teach a class about fairy tales, and taught one in the past about Lord of the Rings. Lit classes for graduate students. Fun stuff.

    posted by Jenn Zuko on 8-27-2010 at 11:12 pm

  175. The wine tasting course I took at New College in Sarasota, FL, was great!
    It was a small class, about 8 of us I think, held in a beautiful marble-floored dining room overlooking Sarasota bay in the old Charles Ringling mansion at sunset.
    Most informative (I still have my notes), and definitely very enjoyable!

    posted by Jim F on 8-28-2010 at 4:24 pm

  176. i have taken several unusual classes during my time as a student, which has been the past 20 years. most notably were :
    the inklings: tolkien, lewis, and williams at King college in tn…we read and kept journals where we discussed religious messages in their writings,
    magic and witchcraft at uga. we actually had to create a spell including the casting of a circle
    currently, im taking an online class on zombies in american folklore which examines the growing interest in the zombie apocolypse

    posted by byron on 10-28-2010 at 7:59 pm

  177. Very interesting list. This spring Lebanon Valley College is offering “Video Games: History, Theory, and Society”

    posted by Zach on 11-1-2010 at 7:25 pm

  178. I took “The Ethics of Springfield” at Southern Methodist University. It is basically the same class as number 2 on the list, but we got freshman English credits for it!

    posted by Jessica on 11-28-2010 at 4:33 pm

  179. At Agnes Scott, I took a class called Transatlantic Voodoo, which was actually spent talking mostly about zombis (no, I didn’t forget the “e”) and the “erect phallus.” (Direct quote, I assure you.) I kept my notes because they were hilarious, but I don’t remember much about the class except that my final project was about zombification and modern zombie films. I don’t have much good to say about Agnes, but that was certainly an interesting introduction to college.

    posted by Emma on 8-6-2011 at 11:59 pm

  180. At Texas A&M they had a B-B-Que class, and Tech has wine tasting

    posted by weston Floyd on 8-23-2011 at 12:57 pm

  181. Between the Gutters – Comic Books as Art in the Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas, taught by one of the Onion AV Club’s most prominent writers, Noel Murray.

    posted by Daniel Green on 8-31-2011 at 4:18 pm

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