I got told my PhD was trendy the other day. It definitely can't be weird then, right?!

Funny, I just went to a training program for researchers where they told us that we should dance our PhD like in some sort of ballet! Thankfully I didn't have to do that in-front of the class but apparently it's encouraged to be able to describe your PhD in a dance! :p

======= Date Modified 04 May 2010 21:27:20 =======
Here there's a whole competition for 'dance you PhD'. Maybe you could win this year...


http://gonzolabs.org/dance/contestants/

I have a PhD proposal in the neuroimaging of reflexology! It's been submitted to Edinburgh. IThe Star Trek PhD rocks! I could do a PhD on Star Trek: Voyager lol :$

Someone I know entered that in the first year it was set up. Most amusing!

Hi all! I'm new here and wanted to contribute to this topic because a few years ago I heard that a man at my uni had been awarded his PhD from his research into the sociology of surfing, and there was apparently someone who got a PhD a while ago here in Australia by researching what Jesus' astrological sign would have been - heard a radio story about it and everyone on the radio was laughing. :)

I thought that my topic was rather muindane but the wird thing is the reactions that I get. I am doing the history of the emergence of public opinion and opinion polls in Australia. Strangely though I get two reactions when I tell people what I am doing either a)they get all glassy eyed and give me that I want to get the hell out of here look or b)they tell me how I should proceed to do my doctorate and that of course it can't be that difficult.

Long time since I've been here (got through a long time ago).

But I think I've two good contributions to make.

1) The origins and evolution of the bra (male supervisor and possibly student):

http://northumbria.openrepository.com/northumbria/handle/10145/83473

2) A weird post-doc on lap dancing:

http://www.leedsstudent.org/2009-12-04/ls1/ls1-news/school-advertises-lap-dancing-research-job
http://www.lincoln.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/2629.asp
http://www.willanpublishing.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781843928171

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Very good finds. I like these! You have earned a star :)

Mine's not too strange, but I've got a friend who looked at the language of toilet graffiti in her MSc (I still remember she said how she was horrified when she saw that the cleaners had cleaned the toilet she researched), and went on to do the aesthetics of language in her PhD. A bit of a contrast I'd say.

My PhD will be on the improvement of stallion spermatozoa using dietary trace elements - I'm so excited 8-) - I love sperm - well horsey sperms, OK will now be quiet :$ what a lovely first impression to give!

I'm not sure if it's that strange/unusual as I've gone through the whole animal/equine undergrad thing and it's pretty normal here to look at animal reproduction.

Bendy

Wow, horse sperm. How do you get hold of them? Will you end up with a PhD and big biceps?! :p

Matt, tut tut:$ That has to be one of the best PhDs I've heard of. I wonder how you'd design a rigorous study for it though... Will it be...

Horse A was given Mighty White (well, the dietary supplement).
Horse B was given ordinary horse feed.

The 'product' of both horses was counted and compared. All the threats to rigour: what if Horse B is more naturally more fecund than Horse A. Or what if Horse A has an off day or is at it with Miss Horse C behind Horse B's back?

Joking aside, good luck with it all.

======= Date Modified 23 Nov 2010 13:12:14 =======
To add to the below, a rummage around the British Library brings up some weird ones. Life will never get boring for these people!!!

UNDRESSING THE MOVES: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF LAP-DANCERS AND LAP-DANCING CLUB CULTURE

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.493247


The characteristics of non-clinical fetishists, sadomasochists and transvestites.

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.256150


Queering Nazism or Nazi queers? a sociological study of an online gay Nazi fetish group

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.496881


Computer fetishism and sexual futurology : exposing the impact of arousal on technologies of cyberspace

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=3&uin=uk.bl.ethos.422230


A silly title more than anything: "The development of microsatellites for parrots "

http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=6&uin=uk.bl.ethos.288084

I knew it would make people smile!! :-)

Alas, I shall not have big biceps... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGhKlXtfvlc) it's more of a work out for the stalion :$ but the result is what I'm interested in. We have some really amazing equipment to use to look at the sperm cells see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnhL73oBNvg

Oh I could talk to you all day about it but I won't bore you. Have a look at the second video though - it's intesting - honest ;-)