# A Call To Academics: Post Your Favorite Title Here ! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404 "2004-08-11T19:34:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/1 "2004-08-11T19:34:11Z")
I attended a college conference last week. I have the program before me. I’ve been leafing through it, reading the titles of the papers presented and the panel discussions. I’m dyin’ here. To wit: ( These are direct quotes ) 1. Collaboration, Catastrophe and the Creative Process. 2. Some Pedagogical Implications of the Digital Revolution in Motion Pictures. 3. “You’re Tellin’ Me You Didn’t See:” The Influence of Hitchcock’s _Rear Window_ on Antionioni’s \* Blow Up\*. 4. Story Design in Spatial Hypertext: Winding Dramatic Line Around Narrative Reflection. 5. Encoded, Embodied and Interactive. 6. Revelation: An Experiment in Effective Communication. 7. The Eternal Sound of Blood: Metz and Kracauer on Bowie and Deneuve, or When You are Undead No One Need Hear You Bleed. 8. Docudrama, Ethics, and _Saving Jessica Lynch_. 9. Realism, Genre and Representation in Recent War Films. 10. The Naked Editor: Teaching Editing Strategies Using “The Naked Chef”. 11. " Gus Van Sant’s \* Elephant\* and the Return of Verticality in the Imgae: Why It Matters " 12. The Indexical Sign in the Digital Age: An Argument Against Realism. 13. Creating Waking Dreams: An Approach to Intuitive Image Making. 14. Blonde-Haired Women in the Films of Martin Scorcese. 15. Squaring the Circle: Integrating Cinema Theory and Filmmaking Practice. 16. Film and Prose Fiction, From the Inside Out. 17. Taming Cinema: Teaching to Write the Unspoken. 18. Not If You Outline: Surmounting Structural Obstacles in Screenwriting. 19. In Defense of Formula Films: The Evils of Conventional Structure and Why We Love Them. 20. Toward a Definition of Mormon Cinema: Does Neil LaBute Make Mormon Movies? ( This was moderated by Sharon Swenson of B.Y.U. ) 21. Père Fatale: Neo-Noir Killers 22. Using Film Festivals to Teach and Present Animated Stories by At-Risk Elementary and High School Students. 23. The Feminization of the African American Male Athlete in \* Boyz 'N the Hood, Cooley High _and_ Cornbread, Earl and Me\*. 24. Crossing the Line: A Practical Approach to Teaching Actors and Directors to Work and Play Together. 25. _Cheers_ as a Model of Public Communications. I mean, my gosh. I know it’s publish or perish for tenure-track teachers but can’t SOMEBODY teach these people how to present their programs without sounding like inflated bags of helium ??? What’s your favorite title of the list above? Please note, all caps and lower cases used in quoted titles are accurate to the presentation in the program. It’s a spotty mixture, to be sure. Apparently some folks can dissect Hitchcock but cannot figure out how to use their Caps button… What’s the seminar or course title that you’ve sat in on that stuck in your head? What’s the fanciest one you’ve ever penned? C’mon, dish!! I always wanted to lead a discussion entitled " Tautology of Humiliation: Why Johnny Loves **Pee-Wee’s Playhouse**". 😃 Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/2 "2004-08-11T20:49:51Z")
My favorite paper ever is one that was done by Federal Emergency Management Agency staff a few years ago entitled something like _Human Instability in Open Channel Flow_. Basically, the researchers got a bunch of volunteers, attached them all to tethers, stood them in a spillway, and kept releasing more and more water until they started knocking folks over. I can see how this information would be useful, especially to FEMA, and I understand the reasons for the project, but I’ve never been able to get past the mental image of the test subjects. ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/3 "2004-08-11T21:02:22Z")
The schedule for my autumn conference is published here [http://www3.niu.edu/mpca/conference/2004/schedule.html](http://www3.niu.edu/mpca/conference/2004/schedule.html) and you can see the titles of the papers by following the links under the detailed schedule (and yes mine is buried in there ‘somewhere’). Nothing takes the fun out of sex, drugs ‘n’ rock and roll like academics! 😃 Some samples to save your brain (mine not included), just from the first day alone: Star Trek: Where No College Workshop Has Gone Before How Do You Read This?’: Teaching Comics in a Community College Humanities Program The Delinquent Avatar: Foucault and Grand Theft Auto It’s a Queen, She’ll Breed, You’ll Die’: A Presentation of Female as Other in Alien Resurrection The 100 Sexiest Women in the World, and My Mom’s Not One of Them: Content Analysis and Sexiness Hip Hop Bulgarian Style: A Critical Examination of the Hip-Hop Phenomenon in Bulgarian Popular Music From ‘Buck Tha Devil’ to ‘Gettin’ Jiggy Wit’ It’: Noise and Meaning in Hip-Hop Music ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/4 "2004-08-11T22:51:03Z")
From that link, "“The Magic Mask: Folklore of John Carpenter’s Halloween,” YEAH BABY !!! Now you’re talkin’. So, is it true that Jamie Lee Curtis is appearing at this discussion? ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/5 "2004-08-11T22:58:14Z")
I always thought “Tooth Symbolism in Herodotus” was way over the top… ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/6 "2004-08-12T04:35:38Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > From that link, > > "“The Magic Mask: Folklore of John Carpenter’s Halloween,” > > YEAH BABY !!! Now you’re talkin’. > > So, is it true that Jamie Lee Curtis is appearing at this discussion? Dunno…cos I know I won’t be there on Friday anyway – my schedule is I have to more or less show up in time for my presentation, dog-and-pony, and fly out again because oddly enough, I have tickets to go see the subject of my paper 😃 ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/7 "2004-08-12T04:38:39Z")
I once wrote a paper in grad school called “Empathy vs. Entropy: Philip K. Dick and the Human/Android Dilemma.” Was that heliumish? ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/8 "2004-08-12T04:42:08Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > I always thought “Tooth Symbolism in Herodotus” was way over the top… When I was in grad school, I knew someone who wrote a seminar paper on toothbrushing in Apuleius’s works. ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/9 "2004-08-12T15:01:25Z")
“‘I’ll See You in the Ring:’ Professional Wrestling as an Unlikely Forum for Viewing American Society’s Concern with Issues Such as Masculinity, Ethnicity, Heroism and Villainy.” I have to admit that I wrote that one. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/10 "2004-08-12T18:06:17Z")
My favorite article title ever is from an article about the 1999 film version of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_: “The ‘[Trans] Textuality’ of Kevin Kline’s Bottom: A Modest Proposal.” The article itself isn’t that great, but the title cracks me up. I mean, it sounds like the sort of thing I would come up with. 😉 A friend of mine wrote one last year called “A Most Ingenious Pair of Dukes: Political and Narrative Symbiosis in More’s _History of Richard III._” And another friend did one called “Fear of Flyting” (I don’t know what the subtitle was). And I’m presenting one at MMLA in the fall called “Privy History: Reading the King’s (and Cardinal’s) Two Bodies in Cavendish’s _Life of Wolsey_ and More’s _History of Richard III._” Which is, if nothing else, delightfully overinflated… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/11 "2004-08-12T19:43:32Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > I once wrote a paper in grad school called “Empathy vs. Entropy: Philip K. Dick and the Human/Android Dilemma.” > > Was that heliumish? Naw. I always saw Replicants as the inner demons brought to life. Nice and neat, they have a Termination Date and everything. If you feel sorry for your inner self ( inner serf? ), then you can hardly encourage its demise. OTOH, all things die, hence your Entropy. Not Heliumish at all. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-call-to-academics-post-your-favorite-title-here/259404/12 "2004-08-13T01:15:43Z")
Mathematics for Engineers by Dull