'The Anthropology of Bono,' and Other Music Courses We'd Like To See

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Recently a few colleges, including the Universities of Virginia and South Carolina, announced plans to offer an undergraduate course on the music, celebrity and all-around mindfuck of Lady Gaga. UVA's is called "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender, and Identity."

We've all heard about legendary and hard-to-get-into classes on topics that don't seem quite academically robust, most of them offered at Berkeley ("Arguing with Judge Judy," "The Simpsons and Philosophy"), or Oregon State's "Far Side Entomology" or Columbia College's "Zombies in Popular Media." But maybe the Southerners are on to something with the Gaga course: surely there's a lot to learn from the popular musicians of the world.

Below, some model offerings.

Oddities, Discourse and Boundaries: The Self-Actualization of ODB

The Geology of Rock: From Pavement to Sly and the Family Stone

Seeing the Sign: The Semiotics of Ace of Base

All's Phair in Love and Sex: Empowerment in Latter-Day Liz Phair

Satire: From Juvenal to Craig Finn

Beeyatch, Please: A New Lexicographical Reading of Too $hort

Andrew Jackson, Andrew W.K., and the Two-Party System

Supa Dupa Fruit Fly: Queering Missy Elliott

Trespasses on the Body Politic: An Iggy Pop Seminar

Marxism and the Guy from Toad The Wet Sprocket

Taking Lyle Lovett Seriously

The Anthropology of Bono

Ted Nugent: What?

Sade and Sadism

Which of these classes would you be trying to crash? Tell us in the comments.

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