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University Offers Class In Zombie Studies
Young people at The University of Baltimore will be able to study the zombie condition thanks to the newly available English 333. Students in the class will watch 16 classic zombie films and read zombie comics. Instead of writing a final research paper they may write a script or draw storyboards for their own zombie movie. Unfortunately the class doesn't seems to cover brain appreciation.
All your brains are belong to us!
It's clear from this class that Universities feel they need to cultivate ... MORE BRAINS!!!!
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Call again when the course is Medicine 666.
is to eat more braiiinnnss!!!
This just in: The best way to advertise your university is to offer some batshit-ridiculous course. *sigh*
If they'd taught this class anywhere other than Baltimore they might run out of fresh corpses to zombify.
I see you have an English degree with a specialization in zombie movies... [burns resume]
As predicted, I already saw a bunch of comments on the original story with parents saying they'd be "angry if their kid wasted their money" on something like this, etc. etc.
In reality, it all depends on the instructor and their willingness to teach useful material. I remember when I was in college, I took a "History of Rock Music" course that the vast majority of people joked about and blew off as one of those "underwater basket-weaving" type classes you'd just take for an easy credit. In actuality, the instructor was a PhD in music who didn't even like rock music very much. He simply realized that most STUDENTS did, however, so it was a topic that held a lot of interest to them. He warned us from day 1 that "if you're expecting this to be an easy, blow-off class, you may want to drop out now". It turns out, he went into considerable depth about the roots of rock music and showed us the links between aspects of contemporary rock music and other forms of music that came before it. We covered what was essentially outright theft of R&B or Soul music of the 50's and 60's, as white musicians redid the original songs as early "pop/rock hits" and compared the original works to the "covers" or "re-makes". We had to write detailed reports and present them in class, discussing artists we felt were significant to the rock music genre and justify that position with facts and details. Essentially, it served as a writing course, an oral communications course, AND a history course all in one, and I think most of us got a lot out of it. (I was playing guitar in a local band at the time, so it seemed like a relevant elective course to take. I left with a little bit better presentation/public speaking skills and an ability to listen to music more critically than before. Really not a bad course at all.)
If the "in" thing is zombies, then great! Why not use it as a "hook" to get people in to a course that's going to teach them a lot about scriptwriting and the basic requirements for making a good movie? Again though, this could *easily* be abused too, if the wrong instructor is teaching it -- because the topic itself means very little. (Unless you REALLY believe the zombies are coming to take over the world -- you probably feel like learning about zombies is pretty pointless to spend college money on!) It's all about how the topic is used to teach something that goes beyond it.
Have some future ex-neighbors who would qualify for their study!
I wonder what the Pre-requisites are for this class and what classes have this class as a pre-req.
It would be great if CompSci 415 required this class
or if all Bachelor of Arts degrees needed a class like this.
What the hell? Every single one of /.'s main-page articles of today have had spelling-and-the-like mistakes!
Have you heard about SoylentNews?
Knowing the right way to handle a zombie apocalypse may come in handy. Most people are quite unprepared, and will think someone murmuring "braiiins" is a political candidate canvassing the neighborhood for this election year.
Plus, a class like this is always a nice thing to take for an elective -- everyone loves a cold one.
Zettai Ryouiki!!
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
There is a course at the University of Northern Iowa called "The Anthropology of Zombies" this semester
Well, given that it is a course numbered '333', it's really on half as evil as possible.....
Amazing. Truly amazing. This will open a whole new area of social research; the behavior of zombies will finally be studied in detail and maybe, just maybe, hollywood will pick up the results and eventually come up with a zombie infestation that resembles reality.
Though I don't think a whole family of zombies grunting at a television show makes up for a good action flick.
My university (Louisiana State) is offering ENGL 2025: Zombie Fiction this Winter.
Scorta futuere amo!
While I was wasting time getting my Physics degree, just to see the whole tech space outsourced to India and China, these kids were getting the type of education they can count on. Skills like zombie-movie screenplay writing are a smart move in any economy, let's see them outsource that!
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
The classes will surely cover such parasitic species as Cordyceps Unilateralis which alter ant behaviour to have some practical value behind it (how many credits that might be worth is another question - although this unleashes some interesting theoretical possibilities). Unless the course is about mastering the Thriller dance. In any case - in scientia (vino?) veritas.
You either don't hang around here much, or you haven't been paying attention to the discussions around here if you have. I assure you, there are plenty of zombies running around here on a regular basis.
I will go so far as to forecast that in three days we will have even more zombie activity than normal...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Typical live person
The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any vitalism animosity. She doesn't. But she is a typical live person who, uh, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know there's a reaction that's been been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of vitalism in our society. We have to break through it
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Grabage. If I wanted to watch 16 zombie movies, I would watch 16 zombies movies. If I wanted to write a screenplay about zombies, I would write a screenplay (and if it sucked, then hopefully I'd learn and the next one would be better). If I wanted to spend either my parent's money, or the taxpayer's money, or money own money in the form of student loans to hang out with the lame ass people that like zombies because its currently a popular meme and don't realize the only reason most people like zombies is because its a currently popular meme, then I would take this course.
Disclaimer. I like some zombie movies. I hate zombie-everything just to mention zombie which has zombie become popular nowadays zombie zombie zombie zombie. Zombie.
This sounds really cool until you realize that someone is actually going to get paid good money to teach students, most of whom will be going into debt to participate, a subject which has literally no value whatsoever to the market. The humanities and liberal arts are not training people in the classical curricula anymore (which actually DID teach them how to think) and instead are getting students 10s and even 100s of thousands of dollars in debt.
This is probably one the harshest, but most accurate statements I've read about what this level of useless content paid for with debt is doing to the lives of students:
There is a big difference between The History of Rock and Roll and an English class where you watch movies and read comic books about something in popular culture that has really no impact on it. And by impact I don't mean sales of books movies stickers t-shirts or whatever, I mean an impact like Rock and Roll had of being both a catalyst of social change as well as a reflection of it, and it can be studied in that context and give a student a greater idea about society. It really walks a line between anthropology and music. Zombies movies and comics on the other hand are garbage. A class in the critical psychological deconstruction of the zombie archetype would be more educational and worth pursuing in my opinion (though also a lot more boring and difficult for most people). So yeah, zombies for the lowest common denominator. Brains. Brains. Seriously, where are the brains? Not in this class.
Stanford University's "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP)" ( http://plato.stanford.edu/index.html ) has an analysis of how literature of Western Civilization has treated the subject of Zombies beginning with Descartes at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/.
If the course in question incorporates this level of discussion in the classes and homework and enable the students to improve their critical thinking and related analytical skills, it really doesn't matter if the "hook" to get students to take the course was the subject of Zombies, slasher flicks, or even a "critical" analysis of the Police Academy movies.
I have one off-spring currently in college studying to be an electrical engineer and can only hope that sometime in the next few years he can take a course that provides that type of "cross subject" context.
Live Long and Prosper - Thanks Leonard. You are missed.
My mother scoffed when I took a course in college about fairy tales ("From Grimm to Disney"). I found it to be fascinating. Literature is literature, art is art. It's about the process, not the subject.
if you're looking for "valuable to the market", why are you going to college at all? Why not just go to a trade school? (Plumbers and electricians have much more stable positions, and a much lower unemployment rate than programmers...)
Seriously, any one taking 300-level English classes are an English major, which is one of the most useless degrees. This just prepares them for life after college. No money, no job, no skills. At least the zombies in Shawn of the Dead found jobs at Walmart, which is exactly the best-case scenario for English majors
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Concurred; I'd have no problem with these kind of classes if the "scholars" were all well-versed (at least) in the Classics, History, and Philosophy prior to taking these courses. As a Liberal Arts student who specifically went (waay) out of my way to cultivate a Classical LA education, I find it despicable that anyone would waste time with stuff like this when there is enough time-tested literature to last a lifetime of traditional study.
And before flaming, consider that I too took a class or two like this, and couldn't believe how immeasurably useless it was compared to later transferring and studying Classics and the Concepts of the Hero, etc., at Harvard.
Yep... in college I took Freshman Writing Seminar classes on "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (but most of the readings were really the on the medieval knights of the round table), and "Artificial Intelligence of the Matrix" (but really on the history of the strong / weak AI debate). Both courses pulled in plenty of ... interesting ... students.
Need one on Trek :-/
Zombies have always been a prop. No different then a flashlight, car, or small fire burning in a trash can. Rarely in a zombie film are the zombies actually the story. Fido was one of the few that comes to mind. Zombies are a prop to remove civilization as we know it to explore a state of lawlessness, martial law, etc. Any pandemic really in a film is a prop or "object to further a plot" (a.k.a muguff, grif, etc.)
Zombies are, in reality rather impractical by any conventional account. Take a piece of raw steak and toss it in your yard and count the number of hours it survives. Zombies = moving dead meat. Maggots, decay, parasites, explosion by putrification, simple damaging obsticals, etc. However they provide a look at "human as a natural predator". Most, but not all, zombie films do not have zombies using tools (although it is become a trend with the advent of the fast zombie) so we get to see humans as animalistic predators. Sadly we are poorly equipped and most zombies would be bear, wolf, mountian lion food rather quickly. Even if they are not food they still would run afoul territory etc.
A class in zombies would be interesting to see how they are used in context to the actual story. Again rarely are the zombies the plot thus there would be merit in literature to compare their use in context of story telling in general.
While the fast zombie makes for a good action\gorefest the classic slow zombie affords greater flexability in what stories you can tell. A slow zombie can open up stories about isolation and loneliness (perhaps even pet-like bonding with the rare zombie) where immediate threat isn't the issue. Dwinding supplies, emmenint unescapable death, etc all become options. A fast zombie always can occupy the moment driving constant conflict in the main character. However a slow maglignant type zombie can foster more internal conflict within the characters. Sorry for the spelling but in a hurry dodging tanks atm...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
They should combine it with Modern Political Studies.
Table-ized A.I.
Direct link to the original article (instead of the yahoo rebroadcast): http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-us-odd-zombie-class,0,2027516.story
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Glaringly different classes help take stress off other subjects, I can attest to that.
I took a philosophy class in one semester and had the good fortune of choosing the subject matter of the class since we were only 2. So we decided on Einstein, special relativity and other related fields. Class was so interesting that it boosted my moral during the semester and actually improved my grades by making me more focused.
Universities should offer more classes like this.
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
My biggest beef with the OP's argument is its implicit premise that a university education should only train a student for a job. Nonsense!
Yes, it would be nice to have a job waiting in one's field after graduating, but let's be honest with ourselves. Chances are, you will NOT have the same career in 5,10, or 20 years after college. And a liberal arts college can provide the education you need to adapt to changing times. (Did you attend an engineering school with crummy English or philosophy departments?* Too bad, you probably won't make that transition to law you might have been contemplating. It helps to know how to write in that field, IIRC.)
Besides, who said "education" had to be practical? College is the one time in your life when you get to learn about things that genuinely interest you. Why not take advantage of it?
*(Disclaimer: I did, but for graduate study. I thanked God for my little liberal arts college degree, once it was time for me to write my master's thesis.)
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
They aren't supposed to go that fast... I'm calling zombie bullshit on that you know? i mean they're not supposed to run so fast" -Zoey, Left 4 Dead, a character who's backstory involved a lot of watching horror movies instead of attending classes.
"Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!" -- Ivanhoe
Y'know, this would be a great way to learn about epidemiology and the way viruses are spread, all while wrapping it in a fun and enticing pretext; much like your professor did with the History of Rock Music course. Besides, having people aware of and preparing for the inevitable zombie apocalypse is never a bad thing.
If your girlfriend has a penis... something's wrong.
soylentnews.org Go there to enjoy the people!
The situation isn't that dire, come on. If you've got a liberal arts degree, there's a pretty good chance that you're a cosmpolitan guy and want to see the world. Once you leave the US, there's zero way to enforce private student loans (and the federal ones, more serious, only total a few thousands). Good luck garnishing my wages when I'm half a world away, and banks can't affect my credit report when my new home has made it illegal for local companies to access foreign credit reports.
I've been in Europe now for over half a decade and the prospects for longterm happiness even after drawing a hundred grand look good.
You may as well complain that a scenic hike in the woods doesn't improve the value of your stock market investments.
There are many reasons people get college or university educations. One of those reasons is to improve one's employment opportunities or earning power. But there are plenty of other reasons, such as for fun, learning about the world, thinking more deeply on various topics, and so on. You know... becoming educated. Obviously some courses will serve some ends better than others. By all means we should be honest with students and prospective students about how a given degree will affect their job prospects. But we should not fall into the trap of treating higher education as being solely about making money.
And, for the record, a proper liberal arts education will in fact teach a variety of skills (organizing data, organizing one's time, researching a topic, critical thinking, etc.) that are, in fact, useful in a wide variety of real-world jobs. Again, it would be a lie to say that a liberal arts degree is a fast-track to riches. But it would be equally silly for potential employers to ignore the hard work and skill that are required to complete a liberal arts degree at a respected institute.
Well at least we know Jonathan Coulton will be on the music appreciation portion.
http://www.jonathancoulton.com/songdetails/Re%20Your%20Brains
Post anonymously - For when your opinion embarrasses even you!
I took a movie class that focused on Film Noir. The Spring semester of the class was going to be about Horror movies. Some friends took a literature class about science fiction. Focusing on a genre is a great way to dissect creative works and analyze the common themes as well as distinctions between works in the same genre.
Using modern works is a great way to teach kids while keeping them interested enough to learn. The latter part is whats missing from many schools.
The students are pretty much zombies.
I went to a overwhelming engineering dominated school. Some like 75 percent of the students were engineers. I minored in PoliSci. In one of my classes we were debated schools teaching other languages, and requiring students take so many semesters. We got on the subject of electives. One student felt that it was unreasonable to expect a student to pay for a class that is not relevant to their major. As a computer based major I pointed out that anything specific I learn in my field will be pretty much useless in 5 years. What mattered were the fundamentals and the skills to learn quickly. The more different types of classes I can take, i.e. English classes on modern literature including graphic novels and zombie movies, make me find ways to study more than a text book. Giving my learning skills a wider basis.
So in short, I think that learning a variety of subjects is good. Anyone attending college that thinks they should only take Comp Sci courses, if that's their major, I think is being short sighted.
There are many reasons people get college or university educations. One of those reasons is to improve one's employment opportunities or earning power. But there are plenty of other reasons, such as for fun, learning about the world, thinking more deeply on various topics, and so on. You know... becoming educated.
A fool and his money...
I don't have a problem with such courses. As others have mentioned many courses of these types have been offered before. However, I've experienced firsthand that some of these courses are very light on substance and are devised by a self-serving professor who has a personal interest in the subject. That in and of itself wouldn't be a problem at all if the professor is using the subject matter to convey a deeper lesson, whether that be social implications, influences within the film industry, cinematography, etc. But I wouldn't be surprised if this class is little more than sitting around watching a bunch of movies in a popular genre. And management is supportive because the school can be marketed as cutting-edge, offering plenty of fun courses.
I never quite got the appeal of the zombie genre anyway. There have been a handful of decent zombie movies, but the vast majority of crap. A few offer some flimsy social commentary better conveyed in a more mature manner and the bulk of these movies are simply cashing in on a fad, merely copying what has already been done too many times before. There's enough to these genre that perhaps you could fill an essay, but I don't see how you could make a class out of it. This is the sort of thing a person could occupy themselves with on their leisure time; it's not really material for a university course.
Given that in place of a final paper they can write a script or draw storyboards I'm fairly certain this course doesn't offer anything compelling.
Go to trade school and be a plumber. Probably make more money than I do.
University is for education not obtaining marketable skills. It just happens that in many places your not allowed to do something until you have a piece of paper to say your not a complete moron. Usually those come AFTER a normal degree to get a professional one, say doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc...
Why can't something that is a reflection of social change be studied in order to give students a greater idea about society?
Thank you for an insightful and (for a slashdot comment) in-depth comment.
One thing puzzles me, though... What is this "college money", of which you speak? College is free is it not? I believe the government will even give you a little money while you study. At least where I come from.
Don't blame me! I voted for Kodos.
How is zombies being especially popular as a meme sort of thing in the last few years a reflection of social change? (I know it can be, but please provide the outline of an answer that could take an entire semester of college to explore, otherwise an entire semester of class on it seems like a waste, to me).
It only seems fair that they sould offer vampire studies as well
Glen Beck University.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/42502/
I don't think it'll look good on paper though, seeing as University nowadays is all about qualifications and so on. Would you really want a course "English - Zombie Studies in the modern arts" on one of your transcripts when you're getting that job?
Well, no. The kids who will take that course will have access to scholars for a few short years and then, in most cases, never again. They should be reading Pride and Prejudice, not Pride and Prejudice with Zombies (as much fun as that is), while they have expert guides.
Everyone but you is telepathic.
Back in my school days, I did see that a nearby college offered (no joke) "Human Sexuality (with Lab)" in their catalog. I suspect they had a lot of disappointed students on first day of class...:P
That's what the US higher education is turning into. Turn out as many diplomas for a price. We can have any crazy ole class that will get idiots to pay tuition for. Then we give everyone a diploma and leave em in debt. So that they can join the real world and realize that everyone else has one, and it only entitles you to work at mcdonalds.
Why not? It wasn't too long ago when someone wrote about a paper entitled "Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection" around here.
"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games." - Eugene Jarvis
Does anyone else find it odd that this is a Junior-level college course in English, and the course is limited to zombie movies and comic books? If you want to study zombie movies, go to film studies. I can accept using zombie comic books, but few, if any, zombie comic books I've seen would qualify as quality literature. (Yes, some comic books do qualify as quality literature, just not those.) The real travesty for these students is that this course could actually be leveraging an interest in zombies to actually study good literature, like World War Z, the Zombie Survival Guide, the zombie Jane Austen books, and various fiction books from different eras in the evolution of the modern zombie. (The history of the zombie concept is quite the story.) Instead, they get to watch movies and read comic books.
This is the real signature
(Beats those shadows on the cave wall, don't it?)
Because there are real consequences to going $50k in debt to get an English or Art History degree. People graduating with six figure student loan debts from programs that don't reliably lead to six figure jobs have gotten pretty common.
You know what that level of debt for a degree that provides no discernible practical job skills does to a typical person? It reduces their options on career choice, relationships and ability to save and buy property.
Yeah, you're now an "interesting person" because you know all about some obscure figures in the humanities. A typical person going that route will also not be able to save for a down payment on a house or condo, have to find a significant other willing to put up with and be able to support a serious debt load and will likely still go to a shitty job at that the end of the day.
But oh yeah, they were "taught how to think" or they can pursue a degree in law, even as that means more student loan debt for a degree in a field that has a serious labor glut.
You're absolutely right. People should not go to college specifically to learn how to do something that will enable their future. That's for those filthy stinking tradesmen who make serious money getting dirty working with their hands.
BTW, this also presumes that you are in the lucky 50% who does graduate and can find a good job. God help the help people who go into student loan debt and then cannot graduate for whatever reason. Hopefully their memories of lectures on medieval French poetry will be a consolation when they make their payments.
Are they going to study real-life zombies like Welfare Zombies?
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
This is almost exactly what Jonathan Shorr of the University of Baltimore was quoted as saying by BBC news. The students think they are having an easy course but in fact are "tricked" into learning something. I don't have a problem with this per se but surely not for adults. This is the kind of technique you use with young children who don't want to learn. If people at university don't want to learn (or can't learn without being hoodwinked) then they shouldn't be there.
I wonder if the course covers the most famous zombie of all: Jeebus! If it's a study of zombie lit, does that means that it includes parts of the Bible that tells about Jeebus dying, and rising from the dead 3 days later with magical powers?
I don't respond to AC's.
And what would that gain them? Reading the old stuffy "classics" doesn't necessarily buy them anything that a zombie lit course doesn't. The goal of these general-level English/lit courses is to help you develop (or learn, if necessary) your writing, analysis, and critical thinking skills. These skills are more likely to be retained if the students learn them by applying them to something they find interesting rather than the same old boring stuff.
I've taken both kinds of classes at the college level. The class with the old material was excruciatingly dull and had a lot of memorization of dead British guys and the books they wrote, and analysis of things almost irrelevant to anyone. The other class regarding cyborgs and science fiction (we were ahead of yesterday's article by a few years) was actually interesting, and people (gasp) paid attention. It even led to thought-provoking discussions on contemporary ethical and legal issues.
Can you guess which one has had more relevance in my life and has hopefully helped me become a better person and citizen by making me think about things I was previously ignorant about? I'll give you a hint--it wasn't the one with the "classics" and dead British guys.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
So, to paraphrase, "My pop culture is better than your pop culture."