Reply #3: I bet a lot of these were so-called college seminars

[Lydia Leftcoast]

that is, one- or two-credit courses that meet once a week as a kind of dessert for students.

Two sound as if they might have been real courses. The Science of Superheroes could be a means of introducing science-phobic students to the principles of physics. A History of the Pig in America could be an actual course in a Department of Agriculture. I recall seeing a course called "Potatoes" in the catalogue of the University of Minnesota's College of Agriculture.

Another factor is that some colleges do not look kindly upon junior faculty members whose classes have low enrollment, not even if they're in basic departments. For that reason, they try to come up with courses that they believe will attract enrollment from the intellectually numb majority.