Today I was directed to a website for the "Top Ten Odd College Courses" buried under MSN Encarta's webpage on College.

And as I read, I wondered: Should I be worried that I've actually taught one of these "oddities" before (to wit: "The Horror Film in Context")?

Actually, I found Encarta's list relatively tame. In graduate school, some of my favorite courses were special topics grounded in the professor's doctoral research or their current book project. Some offbeat classes -- like "African American Lesbian Poets of the 1970s" or "Women, Comedy & Carnival" -- made huge impressions on my desire to do research into cultural studies and taught me more about feminism than I would have picked up otherwise. Though the subject matter may have been non-standard, the theories and foundations underpinning them were just as rigorous as the Shakespeare class offerings. In fact, they might have been more so, given that the teachers who proposed these courses probably had to "defend" their curriculum just a little bit harder than canonical author studies, which can often take their clout for granted.

As an undergraduate in English, probably the "oddest" course I took was a special topics course in Vietnam Literature (taught by Tim O'Brien scholar Steve Kaplan at CSU-Pueblo), and it wasn't very odd at all. It was fantastic. The most "odd" thing I can recall about it was being surprised to be reading a pulpy paperback 'war' title or two to round out the course. I think these specialized courses are great because usually they allow the student to study a topic in depth rather than in the typical breadth of a 'survey' course. But I also think undergrad studies are a place where there are so many foundational, canonical, and historical texts they need to become familiar with (if only to pass the GRE) that there's little room for outre offerings in the course catalogue.

I at first assumed that offbeat courses were only the stuff of huge research universities, but that's not true. At Seton Hill U, where I teach, we often have classes you wouldn't expect. My colleagues in the Humanities division are teaching or are presently designing classes in the Graphic Novel, the History of Sexuality, Gaming and Game Theory, Romance Writing, and more. I think these courses provide balance and lend an interdisciplinary reality to a student's liberal arts education. Obviously, they can be fun, too. They can draw students by the sheer nature of their novelty, and -- ideally -- teach them to apply skills and knowledge they've picked up in general educational courses or stock major courses in a specific and in-depth way. Indeed, some courses get such a "buzz" among students that they become must-takes.

The motives for offering such classes are varied. Some are constructed with the hidden agenda of boosting enrollment in a particular major -- a form of sly advertising or a sign of subtle desparation. Others are simply pet projects of a professor who might not be connected with the real world application of such material in the student's life or work "in the major" after college. But in most cases, I think non-traditional studies and offbeat "topics" courses benefit students by engaging them in deep inquiry and research in a way that is unexpected. The MSN article -- which ostensibly serves college-seekers -- to some degree perpetuates a myth that academic institutions are ivory towers that have no connection to the real world. Their particular parade of odd classes is relatively tame, but in spirit it's reminiscent of those funny lists one sees from time to time of "bizarre academic research programs" that seem like a waste of governmental grant money or the truly outre courses that raise parents' hackles, like courses in "The Art of Pornography" or "Computer Hacking 101." Indeed, sometimes such anti-intellectualism in the press is a somewhat hostile response to the fact that such courses (like, say "The Horror Film in Context") are actually performing inquiry into matters and phenomena that exist in the "real world" (like, say the consumption of horror films as weekend entertainment) or the contemporary culture in a way that, say, a Shakespeare course, is not. In that way, these classes are more pertinent than one might suspect. And both the instructor and the student are usually more passionate about their teaching and learning than they might otherwise be teaching, say, an introductory course in the field. Thus, such classes are also renewing.

I'm just pontificating at this point, but I'm curious what others are thinking. I don't know if this will get any response or not, but to those of you reading this: What are the weirdest classes you've taken or taught (in terms of the subject matter, not the teacher)? What would be the oddest course you'd genuinely like to teach, given the unlimited freedom to do so? Leave a comment below.

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