Ha! I was on the Honors subcommittee. I've seen it all. My faves were ____ & film (fill in the blank).

I'm all for it, as long as it has a conceptual framework of some kind. Ah, I remember having my "entertainment marketing" students read Sontag's "Notes on Camp" and relating it to Family Guy & having us all struggle through Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle. All of this was tied together with a pragmatic text that was as far from theory as you could get. The evals were good in 2007. I have no idea about 2006 since the University lost the evals for the department. D'oh, speaking of the Simpsons.

I dig the fringe courses. Zombies in Popular Media, hell yeah!

Mainly, I find that those classes better apply classical concepts to popular media and, in doing so, helps me to remember them better. I've had long drawn out arguments over whether or not the Zombie subculture better represents the consumerist state that America has found itself to become, or if the focus should be on the survivors and how people band together in times of duress.

I don't know if these courses should create any kind of curriculum, but they are excellent ways to learn about new ideas and to challenge your worldview. Plus it's a lot easier to drag yourself to class if the debate involves Zombies or the Simpsons.

I smell an independent study :-) The Politics of Zombies. I'll get right on convincing my chair!!

I took "Vampirism in German Literature" in college and *loved* it. Read classics that I'd overlooked and developed a historical & psychoanalytical framework that's been very useful to me as a writer & reviewer....

Re: Zombies (and vampires), they're often read today as metaphors for AIDS and other infectious diseases (flesh-eating bacteria, anyone?) the same way as the '60s' Triffids are read as McCarthyism and all those '50s' atomic monsters read as fear of nuclear attack. *Totally* relevant for a sociologist to discuss in class!

1) Another unusual course:

StarCraft @ UC Berkeley:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/weird/Course-Credit-for-Playing-Video-Games-at-Cal.html

2) The best zombie films are replete with social commentary/satire. Such commentary is often lacking in sophistication, but it is commentary nonetheless.

For me, the most memorable scene in Dawn of the Dead (1978) is when the zombies are milling aimlessly around the shopping mall.

Ryan...great point re: the zombies milling aimlessly around the shopping mall. that's my new computer screen background!

While I don't think that someone actually majoring in Philosophy, someone that takes it completely seriously would feel like exploring the Philosophy and Wes Anderson; there are many a student that are required to take a course such as Philosophy. And while many students no doubt are really in college to soak up all that they can learn about everything, even if it isn't relevant to their area of study (alright maybe it isn't most), but others believe it or not, really don't care about the one math class they have to take in college because they hopefully will never have to do math again.

Another sad thing I think is that creativity is not encouraged enough in any field. We all have imagination but the physical act of imagination- creativity is almost discouraged everywhere. The top four jobs in the US didn't exist four years ago! We must encourage creativity because it is what separates one film major from the next, or one marine biologist from his colleague.

What I think about these classes then in conclusion is A) makes for a student that would be normally bored by philosophy totally fascinated because he just happens to love Wrestling, and the philosophy of Wrestling sounds "sick." After all why do we require that students take a certain amount of general ed classes? We want a well rounded educated student, well please tell me which student you think paid attention in class, Suzy who had to take a philosophy class so she took philosophy 101 just to do the easiest thing and get it out of the way but wants to pull her hair out everyday in class because it is so boring and it sucks; or mister Wrestling suggested above.
B) Beyond wanting well rounded students we should also be hoping that the kids that will one day be the nations future to be creative, to be able to look at things from many different directions, to realize that Science isn't limited to simply the boring books on biology and chemistry, but that you could explore the chemistry of dinosaurs, or pastries.

I say hoo-rah for classes like this. Sure our budgets here and there are limited today, but what teacher wouldn't love to teach a class on Halo 3 and Society?

I would take "Zombies in Popular Media" in a heartbeat.

I feel like classes like that are wonderful. Sure, it's a little odd, but there are so many messages to be found in most avenues of modern pop culture. There doesn't need to be a line between pop culture and the classroom as long as the subject is something that a student can really learn from.

Classes like that allow students to challenge themselves and search for something more than entertainment within in a subject that they enjoy.

A class about cyberporn and it's affect on society? Totally interesting and a lot can be learned from that.

A class analyzing the messages in "Watchmen"? Relevant, interesting, and eye-opening.

Having a class on Britney Spears shaving her head? Probably not.

I feel like it all comes down to what subject in pop culture the class is going to dissect, and whether or not it's going to be beneficial to the student.

You can always learn a lot from zombies. :)

Ryann,
Good to see you posting here. I think that fostering creativity is often lacking in most curricula and that most curricula are artifacts of politicking.

If one looks at the CLU Student Learning Outcomes, one of the educational objectives is fostering a culture that embraces intellectual curiosity and creativity. Yet, my experiences have been that when faculty offer innovative "special topic" classes, we need to play this game where we cross-list like crazy to fulfill as many checkboxes as possible for students. (At my prior institution, it was really hard to teach anything that wasn't in the catalog.) Plus, if enrollments aren't "satisfactory," the classes are cancelled or you get called on the carpet for not having high enrollments.

I think your point on creativity is a good one and I long for the day when more than lip service is paid to it, systematically. Otherwise, were just mauling the masses, aren't we?

As much as I believe creativity is impotant, I do not think classes such as The Science of Harry Potter, Myth and Science Fiction: Star Wars and The Matrix are a complete waste of time. College students are this next generation's future and we need to gain knowledge about useful things, not fictional movies. If students want to learn more about movies, they should watch them by themselves and spend their time in the classroom on more important things.

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