College Courses- Out of the Ordinary

I will soon have teens going off to college, and I wanted to research what new and fascinating courses were offered. I once took a course on Alfred Hitchcock as an elective so I was pretty open-minded.

Occidental College located in Los Angeles, CA has a prestigious list of alumni. They are successful and run noteworthy companies such as the American Red Cross and the Washington Post ; direct cancer research at Amgen; produce movies at Revolution Studios, teach at Stanford, Vassar, and in public schools; and write best-selling books, and spent time the White House, according to the college website.

Occidental College was founded in 1887. U.S. News & World Report has ranked us in the top tier of liberal arts colleges since 1991. The college won its first Rhodes Scholarship in 1907, and since that time students have won 10 more Rhodes Scholarships, in addition to Truman Scholarships, Watson Fellowships and, Fulbright Scholarships. Two times in the past decade, Newsweek has named Occidental as one of the nation’s hottest colleges.

I was interested to see what new and fascinating courses were offered this semester. So of course I first checked out Critical Theory and Social Justice. The aim of the Critical Theory and Social Justice Department is to encourage insightful of how categories such as "race", "sexual orientation," and "nationality" assist people to recognize and combat some injustices and obstruct them from recognizing and combating others according to the school catalog. Well there were some thought provoking titles such as Stupidity, Whiteness, Critical Blackness and the renowned The Phallus. I got the course descriptions because they are as attention-grabbing as the title.

180. STUPIDITY
Stupidity is not ignorance nor organicity, but rather, a consequence of knowing and an element of normalcy, the double of intelligence rather than its opposite. It is a relic of our nature as finite beings and one of the most influential and determinants of human destiny. This course in Critical Psychology follows the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Gilles Deleuze, and most recently, Avital Ronell, in a philosophical examination of those operations and technologies that we perform in order to present ourselves uncomprehending. Stupidity, which has been evicted from the philosophical premises and dumbed down by psychometric psychology, has returned in the postmodern discourse against Nation, Self, and Truth and makes itself felt in political life ranging from the presidency to Beavis and Butthead. The course scrutinizes stupidity.

286. WHITENESS
The course looks to connect the emergent body of scholarship selected to deconstruct whiteness. It will inspect the construction of whiteness in the historic, legal, and economic contexts which have permitted it to act as an enabling condition for privilege and race-based prejudice. Meticulous attention will be given to the role of religion and psychology in the construction of whiteness. Texts will include Race Traitor, Critical White Studies, The Invention of the White Race, The Abolition of Whiteness, White Trash, and Even the Rat was White. Prerequisite: a 100-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Critical Race Theory. CORE REQUIREMENT MET: UNITED STATES

342. THE PHALLUS
A review of psychoanalytic theories of gender and sexuality. Topics include the implication of the phallus, the relation of the phallus to masculinity, femininity, genital organs and the fetish, the whiteness of the phallus, and the lesbian phallus. The authors we read include Freud, Riviere, Lacan, Irigaray, Kristeva, Grosz, Gallop, Silverman, de Laurentis, and Butler. Prerequisite: a 200-level CTSJ class. Emphasis topic: Feminist and Queer Studies.

386. CRITICAL BLACKNESS
Critical Race Theorists have begun to describe a "new blackness," "critical blackness," post-blackness," and "unforgivable blackness." This evolving research, which describes a feminist New Black Man, also seeks to "queer blackness" and to eloquent a black sexual politics that addresses a "new racism." By calling us to scrutinize the possibility of a black political solidarity that escapes the problems of identity politics, this scholarship incites We Who Are Dark to envisage more complex and free identities. This course invites all of us to engage this scholarship.

The next stop on the college rounds was Western Nevada College. Its website states the college was established in 1971. This semester the college offers a course in Ufology a new word coined to illustrate the combined efforts of those who study reports and associated evidence of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

Ufology is offered by the Philosophy Department: PHIL 180B: Ufology. It’s a one credit course with no prerequisites. The course will study ufology in our popular culture as well as a lectures on ufological theories thought to explain the evidence for ufological claims.

Moving eastward, if you are the outdoor type, Cornell University, Cornell Tree Climbing Institute offers, yes, a course on tree climbing.  The Institute encourages safe and environmentally responsible tree climbing techniques for recreation, education, and research.

The Honors Program at Frostburg State University, MD is offering The Science of Harry Potter.  The first building of this school was completed in 1900. It was called the State Normal School at Frostburg, and offered a two year program of elementary school teacher training. Now the school offers courses like the popular Science of Harry Potter course.

This last college course I will mention, encouraged me to actually put down the computer, get out and walk.  Centre College's “The Art of Walking” Centre Term course was featured February 8, 2010 on NBC's Today Show. Students are given reading assignments, as well as freelance “walking assignments”. Founded in 1819, Centre College, Danville, KY is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges.  So with that inspiration, I bring this hub to a end, and go off to stroll through nature preserves, dog parks, high school athletic fields and other subdivisions.