University of Psychogenic Fugue, sometimes abbreviated to UPF, is a satirical humor book in the form of a parody college course catalog for a fictional American University written by Tye R Farrell and Jeffrey Morrow. It was published by Meteorite Press in 2002. Its subtitle is "A Course Catalog for Students of Life".
The book dryly satirizes the 21st century college experience and the foibles of modern life through hundreds of "classes" in 15 "departments" of study, including Glamour, Suburban Science, Life Science, and Love. In addition, the book describes fictional scholarships, grants, university buildings, and meaingless complex policies. There are also numerous campus clubs, fraternities and sororities, including Gamma Lambda Ding Dong and Eradicate Ugliness Worldwide. The book's sometimes cynical humor has been described as similar to The Onion.
The University's name comes from a psychological condition, psychogenic fugue, in which a person is unable to remember his or her past. The term psychogenic fugue was recategorized as dissociative fugue so now (according to the authors) it is a state of mind that doesn't exist. This attitude reflects many of the mock course offerings you're not likely to encounter in traditional higher education, including:
- Glamour 106: Build a Better Supermodel
- Business 112: Advanced Drug Dealing
- Life Science 599: Postmodern Coffee
- Love 214: Valentine's Day Sabotage
- Suburban Science 244: How to be a Carnie
- Culinary Arts 105: Living Without Food
- Generally Accepted Science 131: Cadaver Farming
- Ethics 102: Living a Lie II
- Communications 121: Calling in Sick
The book received a number of humor and culture awards. Its format has drawn attention from diverse sources, from the Chronicle of Higher Education to counterculture magazine High Times, as well as college and internet press.
UPF also hosts an online satirical counterpart where web surfers can learn more about the University and its programs of study.
Famous quotes containing the words university of, university and/or fugue:
“It is well known, that the best productions of the best human intellects, are generally regarded by those intellects as mere immature freshman exercises, wholly worthless in themselves, except as initiatives for entering the great University of God after death.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Television ... helps blur the distinction between framed and unframed reality. Whereas going to the movies necessarily entails leaving one’s ordinary surroundings, soap operas are in fact spatially inseparable from the rest of one’s life. In homes where television is on most of the time, they are also temporally integrated into one’s “real” life and, unlike the experience of going out in the evening to see a show, may not even interrupt its regular flow.”
—Eviatar Zerubavel, U.S. sociologist, educator. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions in Everyday Life, ch. 5, University of Chicago Press (1991)
“The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life.”
—Helen Hayes (1900–1993)