Academic Year 2014 – 2015
Syllabi
Michaelmas term
Boot-licking (BL) for late beginners
Physiology of BL: phono-syntactical, postural and motor components; agonist and antagonist muscles.
Physical and mental training techniques: the value of dedicated practice; explosive and endurance (tantric techniques) BL; cervical and lumbar mobilization techniques; BL cramp and burnout syndrome prevention.
Pathophysiology of BL: motor symptoms (dyskinesias, dyspraxias, flexibilitas cerea); obsessions and compulsions; addiction (habituation, sensitization, craving and binging).
Pharmacology of BL resistance: local and central BL boosters.
An introduction to dodging in Academia: theory and practice
Patterns of dodging behaviour: goldbricking, cyber- and classical slacking, shirking and skulking.
Dodging as an evolutionary force: increasing fitness through paroxistic dodging.
Genetic bases of dodging: the nature vs. nurture debate.
Anthropological foundations of dodging: biological, linguistical, and ethnological aspects.
A mini-course on academic sociology: aoidos, jesters, buffoons and stooges
From Guignol to Academia: marionettes, burattini, títeres and peleles: universal features, from metaphor to academic reality; academic pantomime: Commedia dell’arte or picaresque novel? From Pantalone and Pulcinella to Lazarillo de Tormes.
“Uomini, mezz’uomini, ominicchi, pigliainculo e quaquaraquà”: applying Sciascia’s fundamental categorization system to academic value appraisal – a monographic course.
A trip into essential academic solitude
The facets of aseity: sailing away from reality: bloating, boasting, and swaggering; tunnel vision: from egoism, egotism and egocentrism, to egomania and egolatria; augmented Narcissi and grandiose mystic delusions; the apotheosis: solipsism as pure realism.
Lent term
Advanced methods in dodging
Poor-dodger therapies: improving blunted dodging reflexes with biofeedback; the underrated value of silence and immobility.
Exploring the semantic field of dodging: from simple avoidance and pussyfooting, to circumlocution, swerve, flimflam and fully-developed deception.
Obliterating pangs of conscience: from zero pangs to zero conscience; behavioural-cognitive therapy.
Academic damage control
Keeping halitosic braggarts at bay: dos, dont’s, and limits of the current state of the art.
Neutralizing scantly-neuroned and/or pre-symptomatic demented bosses: semiotics of academic idiocy, cretinism and fatuosness; pretended pandering, temporizing and other dilatory tactics for twat management; palliative care for half- and quarter-wits.
Grappling with cheaters, swindlers, serial fraudsters, and other academic fakes: preparing concise and high-impact un-cover letters; firework craft and control.
Anti-cynicism therapy: schools of thought, pharmacopoeia and pharmacodynamics.
Easter term
Topics in the Sociology of Science
Effective collaboration methods: rudiments of arm-twisting, ball-grabbing, and blackmailing: tutorial and hands-on sessions; argumenta ab auctoritate: historico-philosophical foundations, basic principles and a survey of common academic implementations, with some paradigmatic case studies.
Optimizing hierarchical relationships: selecting devices for smooth pant-lowering; advanced juggling and procrastination techniques.
Recent advances in disparaging, slurring and bad-mouthing: Cesare Sterbini’s legacy; efficient rumor broadcasting techniques; the value of consistency and iteration.
Effective quarantine schedules for compulsive publishers: early detection of pernicious working tendencies; confinement, quelling and quenching, waste management and disposal.
Optimizing survival and energetic costs: absence of trade-off; free-floating techniques in turbulent environments; tools for sustainable attention diversion, bamboozling, and misleading; natural and man-made skin thickeners.
David Papo 