Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Evidence That Someone Has Lost Their Mind?

Zombies are everywhere these days. Last year they hit the best-seller list in a bizarre mash-up with Jane Austen called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." They have inspired math professors to devise statistical models for surviving a "zombie apocalypse." This fall, they'll star in the AMC TV series "The Walking Dead."

And now, they're the subject of a new course, otherwise known as English 333, at the University of Baltimore. link

You might think that my initial reaction to a course like this would be academic revulsion, but that's actually not the case. There are all sorts of college courses out there that examine specific genres of music, literature, film, or art, and as individual courses I think they can be educationally valuable and can allow students to explore some specific interests in a little bit of depth. I'd be very concerned, though, if someone were allowed a major in Zombie Studies.

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