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Radar Investigates
Stupid Studies
Research Spidey! Specialize in fake news! Perform sex acts for credit! Radar nominates the 10 most moronic college courses in America Marilyn Manson and Oprah are visiting professors. Academic conferences ruminate on Morrissey and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The masculinity of Antonio Banderas is pored over in freshman seminars. Now that the highest tiers of academia are using low-brow pop culture to sex up their curriculum, is it any surprise that even the dullest departments are adopting wink-wink course titles like What is Mathematics and Why Won't It Go Away? (Oberlin) and Drug Delivery (a Harvard course in—you guessed it!—chemical engineering)? We studied hundreds of college catalogs to uncover the 10 flimsiest classes offered by America's best (and worst) universities. Don't forget to conceal your glee when the prof. rolls in the TV.  LEARNING YOUR ABCs Vanderbilt University Can you churn anything through the academic meat-grinder and come out with a course about gender, race, and class? Professor John Sloop's freshman seminar uses the plotlines, website, and clever multimedia clues of ABC's abs-driven drama to teach students about "the function of television in everyday politics." Sloop recently told the Vanderbilt Register that he hopes his course will help students "become more reflective about language, word uses, symbols, signs." Perhaps in preparation for The World According to Jim: Religious Iconography and the Belushis.  HARD CORE CURRICULUM University of Washington Among younger academics, hip-hop studies is rapidly becoming the new It specialty. One pioneer, grad student Georgia Roberts, has taught a class for the past four years that combines 2Pac's lyrics with examinations of texts like Machiavelli's The Prince and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. For extra credit, students learn the Humpty Dance.  COARSE STUDIES Wesleyan University Early in the new millennium, porn studies (or Pornology) became a fashionable discipline. Several colleges offered classes that incorporated the work of Annie Sprinkle and some dude with a mustache. But only Wesleyan associate professor Hope Weisman took the pedagogy one step further and, alongside assigning readings by Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, required students to make their own pornography as a final project. One photographed herself and her boyfriend engaging in oral sex, while another taped his friend masturbating to the music of Ella Fitzgerald (and got an A). After two years, the class was canceled, but that didn't stop Wesleyan's workhorse students from exploring the topic through independent studies.  POPULAR SCIENCE University of California-Irvine Say goodbye to "rocks for jocks." Science profs are getting creative with their gut classes. The Science of Harry Potter, at Frostburg State University, used physics to explore the book's magic; now UC-Irvine is offering a class that asks the great stoner questions of our time: Can a gamma ray accident really turn you into the Hulk? Is there gravity on the planet Krypton? And what the hell is Spidey Sense anyway? Professor Michael Dennin uses Einstein's theory of relativity and the formula for the speed of light, among other scientific principles, to determine which superhero capabilities are realistic (turning green) and which are virtually impossible (X-ray vision; sorry, guys.)  WAG OF THE FINGER New York University This year, journalism undergrads prepping for Columbia J-school can study the hottest trend in reporting: fake news. According to Professor Joe Cutbirth—whose doctoral research explored the role of The Daily Show in the 2004 election—the course is "designed to examine the emergence of fake news as a cultural idiom." Students are required to tune into Jon Stewart nightly and to keep up with Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update. A field trip to a live taping of The Colbert Report lets students witness truthiness in action.  FINER POINTS Experimental College, Oberlin College Oberlin's Experimental College, founded by the student body in the 1960s, offers one-credit student-run courses that are more like bastard cousins to a traditional college curriculum. This year's offerings include classes on Six Feet Under and Strangers with Candy, in addition to a video game class that gives each participant semester-long access to a Nintendo Game Cube. Unfortunately, gamers who want to improve their scores with "basic, intermediate, and advanced combat techniques" will also have to sit through lectures from their peers on "censorship, stereotyped characters, addiction, and gaming as an evolving art form."  STRING THEORY University of California-Santa Cruz This long-running course taught by professor and puppeteer Kathy Foley examines "the artistic and social impact of the Muppets on American puppetry." In addition to introducing students to "puppet theory," the class promises screenings of Muppet movies and shows, as well as some "special guest lecturers." But don't expect Kermit. He only does commencement speeches.  ACADEMIC ENTERPRISE University of Texas-Austin Unlike high school, which can be an inhospitable planet for Trekkies, college is a Vulcan Shangri-la. Several universities incorporate the sci-fi phenomenon into classes on everything from physics to philosophy. This particular course uses the TV program's alien cultures as a lens through which to "discuss current ideas about linguistic theory, especially ideas surrounding the interaction of language and society." Enrollees study Esperanto and are required to read The Klingon Dictionary. Ambitious students may also want to pick up a copy of The 40-Year-Old Virgin.  LOGICAL PHALLUSY Occidental College Old-school feminists might argue that all college classes are essentially studies of the penis, but this is the only one that has the balls to says so. Students explore cultural notions of the "Jewish phallus," the "Latino phallus," and the "lesbian phallus." (Yup, they've got one too). Sure, participants will have to muscle through the complex sexual theories of Freud and Lacan, but they'll come away with new words like "phallogocentrism" to impress Mom and Dad with on break.  A LI'L SILLY Syracuse University In 2004, Professor Greg Thomas initiated an English course on the oeuvre of Li'l Kim, examining the sexual politics of the rapper's rhymes within the context of the male-dominated culture of hip-hop. "In place of bourgeois literature, and even more bourgeois criticism, there will be rap audio and lyrics, oral history, ethnomusicology, folklore, and spoken word ... as well as Black Studies of all kinds," read Thomas's course description. As an added bonus, Thomas even managed to get Kim herself to pay a much publicized visit to the class, pre-incarceration. Unfortunately, the English department isn't offering the course this fall, but it may return once the "Queen Bitch" nails down a new record deal. Related: Bad Education
09/20/06
I am actually a recent alum of Oxy and took the Phallus this past Spring. For the record, the course title is simply "The Phallus" and it is in the Critical Theory and Social Justice department at Occidental. I also took "Stupidity" and "Whiteness" within that department and will defend all three's reputation from graduate school at an Ivy next year--not Cornell, loved the other article. Though we did learn big words to impress/frighten others, the course did teach me a great deal about the ways in which we operate in an environment (un)subtly questing for this ever moving ideal of masculinity--both men and women are guilty. Keep up the good journalism--big fan of Radar--and let people learn about Phallologocentrism, chances are these are the exact type of peopl who buy your witty magazine. Posted by: PHALLOLOGO | August 25, 2007 02:00 PM  < BACK TO Features |
  
  
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