It's Now Possible to Get a Ph.D. in Manga Studies

Isn't it neat how we can make up any kind of degree we want and then claim specialist or elite knowledge of the subject? Finally someone will say "What do you know, do you have a degree in Manga?"

This is particularly interesting to me at this time as the content of this book I'm reading deals with this form of society (The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul). For example I have found my points of view largely ignored and cast aside because I'm not a tenured neuroscientist, never-the-less, I have this acquaintance who I occasionally correspond with who is a practicing neurophysicist of sorts working on neuroimaging techniques in Germany, he has no such prejudice toward me. In one email correspondance he lamented his position and expressed some envy for mine:

"you seem to be better educated than me physics methodologist.
I am not kidding! When you try to get to this field of research it's tough to do something as a career changer who wants to apply stuff and just bring in ideas... one of the weaknesses of the field or of the educational system, I think.
Because I seem to not get any further in getting into neuroscience and only read about this in my free time. I just finished writing something for a conference (deadline is at 23:59est) and it's pure technical stuff not even really useful at the moment, because nobody here seems to care about using the tech, -just developing something without a deeper research interest behind it. (This is the most annoying thing here!)
Oh well but enough of this sh- for now.
We should just educate ourselves, because sometimes working in a lab will only keep one from thinking about the interesting stuff."

In case you are wondering, no I will not tell you his name. You either believe it or you don't.

That's funny, I was hoping to see Ben Dunn talk at a discussion group on re-enactments of World War II in Anime at Anime North, but he was late so didn't show up for that one. He did eventually show up though.

There are several universities that offer a PhD in Nanga and/or Anime.
Nagoya University, a National University, offers such a degree through one of its programs. Forget which though.

So tempting!