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University offers 'Simpsons' as Philosophy Class
joestump98 writes "I ran accross a story at CNN that says a local Michigan college, Siena Heights, is offering a philosophy class on our favorite cartoon - The Simpsons. The Catholic school says the class is about religion and philosphy in popular culture." And I thought Rocks for Jocks was a hilarious concept in wasting a college education. That said, I'd take that class. Have to make sure to watch my homework tonight.
I guess Christ is Christ.
Please stop feeding peanuts to my deity.
...that the education system is in complete shambles, when it becomes necessary to introduce courses like this.
In all likelyhood, they're the equivalent of the underwater soap-carving courses that engineering students take to "satisfy" the arts requirement component of their curriculum.
In the story, who's speaking up about the course? A biology major -- a geek who is apparently too dim to recognize that a broad education is valuable, and has chosen to take a flakey course to satisfy a requisite with minimum effort.
Why on earth are the universities catering to this sort of limited, lazy thinking?
The job of the university should be to create a graduation class of people who are going to lead the advancement of the arts and sciences. To do so, these people are going to require a broad education, one that has challenged them on all fronts and forced them to think creatively and thoughtfully. They need to be people who are eternally curious, doggedly determined, and, above all, brilliant.
Serving up Simpsons swill as some sort of philosophy substitute is not doing anyone a favour.
Perhaps the standards have dropped too low. Maybe you don't have to be particularly smart to enter university any more: you just have to have money. Perhaps there's too much emphasis in the job market on post-secondary degrees. And the past three decade's emphasis on sciences as the be-all and end-all goal of education is certainly at fault: we need more technically-trained people (ie. college-level job training) than we need science/structure-trained people.
"The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'oh! of Homer," indeed. Next up: "An Overview of Political Philosophies: The Travels of Xena, Warrior Princess."
Bah.
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so how long have you been teaching the class?
Sorry, but I get more philosophical insight out of a good episode of spongebob squarepants than a simpsons episode.
It's entertainment people! entertainment....
next thing you'll know is people will start worshiping simsontology and hold matt groning as their leader.
The philolsophically interesting thing I see with all this is the correlation to the failing years of the roman empire when the people started studying silly-ass things and focusing on learning socially useless trades.... The parallels in aincent history with today are quite facinating.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This is not that unusual of a thing really ... Professors need to engage students. Having a class about a subject they are interested in is ceartinily a way to do this ...
At my university, (UC Riverside) there is a course on Star Trek! I think it focuses on ethinc issues or something.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!