Come on then, lets see what you are all doing? The PGF Team are interested in finding out who's doing the strangest, most unusual PhD. Get posting!

Adam
PGF Team

I'd prefer to maintain anonymity (but my PhD is certainly not strange, though it may compete under the most boring!).

The weirdest PhD I've seen was one advertised on this site...regarding bread!

What is weird anyway? I mean probably what most people do seems somehow strange, weird and with limited usefulness?! mmm, i mean "crazy" might be a better way of decribing things.. i am only working with lifeless instrumentation, so it's all not that crazy, but there might be some people out there working on children, animals or something?!

Ok ok, well as an example there was a discussion on PhDs on BBC radio Scotland a couple of months ago where someone was doing a PhD in the Eurovision song contest

I heard something on the radio last night about someone who was doing research about the men and women who visit the 'ping-pong' clubs in Thailand. :-)

Interesting or not, it's still a strange thing to do. (Compared to medical research or engineering for example)

I'd like to maintain my anonymity. But I will say that coming up with a good 'reason' for carrying out my research, other than it being utterly fascinating, is a bit of a struggle for me!

I'm looking at fine art and commercial film, and, really apart reasons which seem to me to be a bit of inflated b*******, the strongest motive I can come up with is that I find it absolutely fascinating, and many other people seem to too, so it will stimulate and amuse many people if published. Personally, I can't see what's wrong with that, I mean, that's what the arts are for, they're for keeping us stimulated, allowing us to play with our intellects and form a sophisticated sense of who we are etc, etc. There was a programme on the telly the other night about how homo sapiens survived over other races because they were into art! So why should I have to try and prove my arts research will bring about world peace or similar??? it's just interesting and that's enough by me. must stop rambling now and get back to it all. 

PhDbug - I know what you are saying and I know every PhD subject is pretty unique and will be alien to someone. I think you know what was meant from the question :p no need to be pedantic.

I was talking a lecturer at the university of leicester a few years ago who was supervising a social science Phd on the sport of Ultimate Frisbee and how it is growing in popularity across the UK. Not exactly weird but I bet there isn't too many people who have done PhDs on that topic.

Also, I'm just about to listen to the Thinking Allowed podcast (from BBC radio 4) and they are discussing the research into the 'ping pong' clubs in Thailand on that, and i'm very interested to hear how this has been studied as a topic of social research.

Oh! an after thought: any chance of a special PGF team star for helpfulness?