{"id":686,"date":"2009-03-12T17:57:20","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T22:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/?p=686"},"modified":"2009-03-12T17:57:20","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T22:57:20","slug":"15-strangest-college-courses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/2009\/03\/12\/15-strangest-college-courses\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Strangest College Courses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why do folks have to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.onlinecolleges.net\/2009\/02\/25\/the-15-strangest-college-courses-in-america\/\">hate on pedagogical innovation<\/a>.  The authors question the wisdom of offering these &#8220;frivolous&#8221; courses in the midst of an economic downturn.  I think these classes are refreshingly creative!  I only wish I would have thought of them first.  <\/p>\n<p>Among the gems:<\/p>\n<p>Myth and Science Fiction: Star Wars, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings<br \/>\nCyberporn and Society<br \/>\nThe Science of Harry Potter<br \/>\nZombies in Popular Media<br \/>\nJoy of Garbage<\/p>\n<p>Philosophy of the Simpsons?  C&#8217;mon, I&#8217;d have taken that at 18!<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.onlinecolleges.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/thesimpsons.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"425\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Am I missing something?  Is this taking &#8220;sacred&#8221; knowledge and making it &#8220;profane&#8221;?  I mean we all toil in the salt mines trying to get our students to engage with ideas.   What&#8217;s wrong with adding a little cheese to the broccoli?  particularly when students are immersed in cheese?  As long as it&#8217;s not swimming in cheese!  <\/p>\n<p>I wonder what students think of these types of courses.  Do they want a bright line between their popular culture and their academe?  Do we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why do folks have to hate on pedagogical innovation. The authors question the wisdom of offering these &#8220;frivolous&#8221; courses in the midst of an economic downturn. I think these classes are refreshingly creative! I only wish I would have thought of them first. Among the gems: Myth and Science Fiction: Star Wars, The Matrix, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":687,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686\/revisions\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}