WASHINGTON - WHILE most US students pour over textbooks for their university philosophy or sociology courses, a lucky few will be watching Star Trek or heading to the local cafe to chat up the regulars.

And it will all be in the line of educational duty because intellectual offerings such as Philosophy and Star Trek or The Cafe and Public Life are serious courses at some of the best institutes of higher education in the US.

The Star Trek course, that revolves around the cult TV show, is like a university introduction to philosophy, but with the added allure of being able to watch the adventures of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock.

'There is this hook of the Star Trek episode showing the philosophy right there on the screen,' Professor Linda Wetzel said. 'You can see exactly what the issue is rather than reading the philosophers.'

If music is more your thing, sign up for Walk Tall: Political Themes in the Lyrics of Bruce Springsteen at the State University of New York at Potsdam. 'The text of the course is Springsteen's lyrics. Students have a lyric sheet for every Springsteen album, they listen to the album in class and take notes. I comment in between tracks and then we discuss the album,' Professor Tom Massaro said.

What some see as oddball courses are seen by the professors who teach them as a way of introducing students to new concepts through a medium they are familiar with.

'In the Springsteen course, we might start out with Springsteen and end up talking about why Congress doesn't do much about poverty in the US,' Prof Massaro said.

Students at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, can take The Art of Walking and look at the works of German Idealist philosophers while out for a stroll through central Kentucky parks, farms and Civil War battlefields. Or they can chat up total strangers in the local cafe for a sociology course called The Cafe and Public Life.

'Students out in small groups observe a cafe and talk to strangers,' said course Professor Beau Weston.

But such courses are not without their critics, who judge the content to be trivial and the course matter to be a waste of time and money.

'I could teach a course called Quantum Physics, which no one would criticise because it has a serious title. But the minute you say Springsteen instead of Shakespeare or basketball instead of the politics of Great Britain, you're bound to draw some ire,' said Prof Massaro.

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