infobong.com

I took some strange classes as an undergrad. I think I graduated in English and Film Studies because I made an effort to take the strangest classes I could find, and the English and Film programs offered classes like "Rhetoric, Orality, and Video" and "Pulp Fiction: Oneiric and Non-Oneiric Narratives." But the strangest class I took was titled "Attraction and Repulsion in Anglo-American Culture," but I referred to it as the "filth" class, since it was basically an overview of what you might call "scat studies." We read a lot of the obvious theorists in the field like Kristeva and Battaille and some not-so-obvious theorists as well. Our literary readings included The Madness of King George and Todd Haynes' Safe.

My classes at UT don't seem quite as strange. Yeah, I TAed a class on transgender studies this spring, and I wrote a term paper about hacking the i-Opener, what weirdness there is doesn't excite me anymore. Its like my life has become predictably weird. I wondered if that "Attraction and Repulsion" really wasn't that weird - I was just a young, impressionable math major struck by the prospect of studying continental theory, so I decided to sneak a peek at Professor Barney's CV. He's since moved to SUNY-Albany, but he seems to be up to his weird ways, presenting papers like, "The Anal Eye of Ecstasy: Scatology, Fantastical Bodies, and Sublime Theory in Enlightenment England." Yeah, I don't think time has given my memory of that class a little extra flavor.

I often think about emailing my old professors from undergrad and pick their brains for a moment. I'd email Professor Welch about her piece on Into the Blogosphere, or ask Professor Barney if he's heard !!!'s "Shit, Scheiße, Merde."