With the school year starting up again, NewsFeed looks back at some of the most unusual courses that have been offered at colleges and universities nationwide in recent years.United Kingdom: To Hogwarts, Harry: An Intensive Study of Harry Potter Through the British IslesCentral Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, M.I.Department: English/Study AbroadIn the class, students read the J.K. Rowling series and went to the U.K. for 10 days to visit historical places that inspired the books or that can be seen in the films, such as Edinburgh Castle, the Bodleian Library and Christs Church at Oxford University and the Tower of London.Wasting Time on the InternetThe University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, P.A.Department: EnglishNo textbooks necessary, just laptops and WiFi. Creative writing students could only interact via social networks, chat rooms and listservs. As the professor Kenneth Goldsmith wrote in a New Yorker article, Were reading and writing more than we have in a generation, but we are reading and writing differentlyskimming, parsing, grazing, bookmarking, forwarding, retweeting, reblogging, and spamming languagein ways that arent yet recognized as literary.#SelfieClassUniversity of Southern California in Los Angeles, C.A.Department: WritingThe formal name was actually Writing 150: Writing and Critical Reasoning: Identity and Diversity. One assignment asked students to take five selfies of themselves and write an essay answering the prompt, How do your selfies produce or obscure a sense of your identity'Learning from YouTubePitzer College in Claremont, C.A.Department: Media StudiesStarted in 2007, the course was designed to ponder what YouTube can teach us. Students watched video, posted comments and were encouraged to post their own clips. Professor Alexandra Juhasz described the video-sharing site as postmodern television, noting its architecture and ownership undermine the fundamentals of academic inquiry.Politicizing BeyoncRutgers, The State University of New JerseyDepartment: Women & Gender StudiesThe course would attempt to position Beyonce' as a progressive, feminist, and even queer figure by analyzing her songs and music videos alongside readings on the history of black feminist struggle in the U.S. in order to try and answer the question, Can Beyonce's music be seen as a blueprint for progressive social change'California Here We Come The O.C. & Self-Aware Culture of 21st Century AmericaDuke University in Durham, N.C.Department: EnglishA pun-filled course description billed the 2012 class as an exploration of the hyper self-awareness unique to The O.C. and analyze Californian exceptionalism and singularity in history and popular culture, girl culture, 21st century suburban revivalism, the indie music scene . . . Well also travel south to Laguna Beach, behind the gates of Orange Countys private neighborhoods of the Real Housewives, up to The Hills of LA, to get like, really real, and finally to New York City for a serene(a) ride to get out of the bla(i)ring sun. You know youll love it, xoxo Your Instructors.The Sociology of Miley CyrusSkidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.Department: SociologyThe child star turned pop diva has been used to study the interplay among race, class, and gender, as well as taking a feminist critique of media and sociology of media approach to the Miley problem. When the course made headlines in 2014, TIME pointed out to critics that primary sourcesmaterial produced by the person being studied or in the time period under consideration, rather than by someone thinking about the subject laterare a cornerstone of good academic practice. Cyrus impact on society is only a few years old, and most of it has been documented online, so pretty much every primary source is easily available to study and interpret.The Art of WalkingCentre College in Danville, K.Y.Department: Environmental StudiesStudents have read works by Wordsworth, Dickens, Tolstoy, Kant and embarked on historical and philosophical walking tours through parks, gardens, museums and even cemeteries to get students to stop focusing on constantly doing and concentrate more on simply experiencinga message that resonates in the smartphone era. It has also been taught in France and Germany as part of study abroad programs.The Physics of Star TrekSanta Clara University in Santa Clara, C.A.Department: PhysicsThe class has used the show to discuss Newtons and Einsteins physics, the Standard Model of particle physics, and the physics that underlies inertial dampers, transporter beams, warp drive, and time travel.Jay Z and Kanye WestUniversity of Missouri in Columbia, Mo.Department: EnglishOne question this course on the rappers relationship aimed to discuss: How is what they do similar to and different from what poets do'Wordplay: A Wry Plod from Babel to ScrabblePrinceton University in Princeton, N.J.Department: Freshman SeminarWordsmiths have played Boggle, Scrabble and shared their favorite examples of wordplay in other languages with the goal of cultivating a better understanding of how language works. As the professor Joshua Katz told a Princeton alumni publication, Im making things up because Ive never taken a class on these things.Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: More trouble for Subway's Jared Fogle...
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