From today’s New York Times:
BALTIMORE (AP) — Call it Zombies 101.
The University of Baltimore is offering a new class on the undead.
The course is being taught by Arnold Blumberg, the author of a book on zombie movies, ”Zombiemania,” and the curator of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, which focuses on American pop culture.
Students taking English 333 will watch 16 classic zombie films and read zombie comics. As an alternative to a final research paper they may write scripts or draw storyboards for their ideal zombie flicks.
The university isn’t the first to have a class on the undead. Columbia College in Chicago has offered a course on Zombies in popular media for years, and at Simpson College in Iowa students spent the spring semester writing a book on ”The History of the Great Zombie War.”
I’m sure someone will defend this debasement of education and explain why watching zombie flicks and reading zombie comics makes you a better-educated person.
Hmm…my brother is an incoming freshman at Columbia College in Chicago. Maybe I should ask him about that.
Is it really any worse than a theology department?
Six of one, half a dozen of the other?
It is interesting thought, which shows a worse view of humanity, a Romero zombie movie, or the old testament?
They both feature zombies.
Romero had better effects and is more plausible.
But I thought Hawking said we don’t *need* zombies to explain the world.
We may not nedd them., but their precence is a comfort. No… wait……
It’s an English elective…really, one could do worse.
Frankly, all that time spent on Jane Austen in the required courses seems to me to be a perfectly and completely equivalent waste of time.
Heck, I got college class credit for bowling. Bowling!!!
The only thing that surprises me is that the list isn’t longer, and doesn’t at present include Ohio State, Alabama, Florida or any of the other big-time football powers.
You’re wrong about Austen, by the way.
Only because you like Austen. This course is for people who like zombies.
People who have studied literature frequently develop a broader definition than just “the stuff I think is good.”
I have studied literature, and I do have a broader definition than what I like. You’re the one who said “Only because you like Austen,” and you’re wrong. There’s plenty of stuff I don’t like that I nevertheless recognize as good.
But what about “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” ?
Must read all the other comments, then post.
Have you read “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”?
Now THAT’s literature. /snark
Either you’re saying that he’s lying, and that Austen did not in fact seem like a waste of time to him, or you are employing poor structure in your response, and claiming that your opinion transcends subjectivity to become fact.
It’s funny; I devoured the “classics” when I was young…I read Moby Dick when I was in 6th grade, an original translation of The Odyssey not much later than that (heavy going, I can attest). I loved Dickens.
Austen pissed me off. Because her characters were only obsessed with manners and formality and class and marrying well so they wouldn’t have to actually, well, work for a living.
And let’s be honest; even Austen acknowledged that she hewed to a strict formula. Her heroine had to be plucky with more sense than her sisters and peers, and after a “spot of trouble” eventually marry happily (if not live happily ever after, because we couldn’t be allowed to see that far into the character’s future).
What I learned from Austen was that the upper-crust English of the time were annoying gits. Who treated anyone with less money than them as second-class. How many servants are there in her novels? Plenty. How many of them have names?
Meh.
Of course, students can now COMBINE their love (or fear) of Austen and Zombies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice_and_Zombies
I don’t think it’s inherently impossible for this to be a legitimate area of study. The zombie subgenre features some very specific archetypes, and it’s interesting to speculate on the types of fears and emotions that this might tap into.
This particular class sounds a bit suspicious — you can do a storyboard instead of a final actual paper? — but I wouldn’t pre-judge it nearly as harshly as you do.
Yes, but does the fact that you can claw inherent value out of any course, however dumb-sounding, justify its existence, particularly when taking it means you can’t take some other course?
Suppose it replaced a course on the novels of Dostoevsky—or on evolution? That’s what these courses do, you know.
Kids that take this kind of crap instead of a course that really makes them think are getting short changed.
I have spoken! 🙂
I’m not clear what your argument is, Jerry — are you against all popular culture studies in principle? That’s getting into “those damn kids better get off my lawn!” territory, no?
As for the specific topic of zombies in popular culture, I think there is potentially quite a lot that is of interest here, certainly in terms of the allegorical nature (just as the sci-fi films of the ’50s reflected the Red Scare). For example, the film Dawn of the Dead, in which the protagonists are trapped in a shopping mall while the mindless hordes attempt to get them, can certainly be read as a critique of consumerism. And, more generally, one might ask whether the rise of popularity of zombie representations has to do with concerns about real-world implacable “others” who threaten us, a very post-9/11 concern.
I’m not saying that the analyses offered above are particularly deep, or that the specific course you identify will take such a scholarly approach. My sole point is that there are legitimate ways in which one can critically approach popular culture.
(The blog and podcast at Overthinking It is often a great demonstration of the kind of informal analysis that one can do with pop culture.)
For example, the film Dawn of the Dead, in which the protagonists are trapped in a shopping mall while the mindless hordes attempt to get them, can certainly be read as a critique of consumerism.
The problem I have always difficulty in getting around, unless specifically declared by the author, is that you don’t know. It could be a classic case of projection and the blind-leading-the-blind..
I got this particular dilemma when I was fairly you. I remember reading one author who’d written this quite famous book and said author was surprised at all the things that people put in there. His whole point was ‘it was just a story,’ nothing he put in there was intended to be “deep.”
So, unless an artist is “on the record” to what something means, before some English/Literature critic/professor gets their hand on it… I tend to remain skeptical to “interpretations.”
Somewhat as an aside, I still remember the movie Back to School. The scene where Rodney Dangerfield hires Kurt Vonnegut to write a paper on one of Vonnegut’s books. For which the Dangerfield character gets an “F” for completely failing to “understand” the book.
Should have been “young” not “you.” Really having a “hell day” in editing, today.
I don’t think an artist gets to decide what their work means. Seriously.
I include my own (horribly amateurish hobbyist) work in this. My wife and my bandmates have pointed out metaphors in my lyrics that were entirely unintended (at least consciously), but seem undeniable in retrospect.
I agree with your skepticism about whether any given interpretation was intended, though. It irritates me when someone is like, “The author clearly meant to symbolize yada yada yada” with only thin gruel to support that assertion. I just don’t think the authors intention necessarily matters, is all.
Or the novels of Jane Austen! Which if nothing else could at least model good (that is, the best) writing for students who haven’t seen much of it.
Good writing for what? Novel writing? No, they’re terrible as novels. It’s certainly not a good model for writing contemporary fiction of any kind, since they’re not contemporary. Reading Austen isn’t going to help with writing contemporary non-fiction or journalism, since Austen was a fairly limited and narrow observer – for instance, is there any point in any of her novels when you realize that English society is in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars? No, it barely registered on Austen despite being the pre-eminent circumstance of the age.
You’re defending Austen because you enjoyed the books. The notion that they have some kind of vast, objective educational merit is risible.
“You’re defending Austen because you enjoyed the books.”
Excuse me? What the hell makes you think that you know that? You don’t know that, and it’s not true. (I did enjoy them, that part is true, but I did not stop there.) That’s a fucking presumptuous thing to say. And no, they are not “terrible as novels” – it’s just stupid to slap that down as if it were factual.
Gosh, Chet, you want to slag Shakespeare too?
Really? I’m shocked that a novelist wouldn’t help journalists.
Lydia Bennett runs off with a militia officer in Pride and Prejudice. In Persuasion Anne Elliot falls in love with a poor naval officer who is disapproved of by her family, and goes on to make his fortune. Fanny Price’s brother in Mansfield Park is a midshipman, and his helped in his career by Henry Crawford as a way for Henry to ingratiate himself to Fanny. These are all important, and in the first two cases central points of the novels. In many of her works, the issue of the military is used to bring outsiders of lower social standing into a closed society, to examine the issues of rank, propriety, and manners. So although she doesn’t write directly about jolly tars like Forester or O’Brian, yes, the war does indeed figure into her work.
I can understand someone not liking Austen. I cannot understand someone summarily dismissing her.
But that’s my point – Austen treats military service as just another respectable vocation for a gentleman, like the clergy or farming (well, owning a farm); there’s never any sense that these men are at risk of dying in war. The family concern about Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion is that he’s insufficiently well-bred, not that he’s going to widow his wife and orphan his children when he’s gunned down at the Battle of Austerlitz. Finally he comes back, and the only apparent consequence of his military service is that he’s filthy rich.
I cannot understand someone summarily dismissing her.
Then you just don’t know that many people who studied literature. Jane Austen is the preeminent example of a pop-culture phenomenon made “great literature” by nothing more than two centuries of enduring popularity. People enjoy her books, and that’s great! But they’re not inherently “great” or “literary.” They’re only celebrated because they’ve been enjoyed for so long. Stephen King, in 200 years, will occupy the exact same place in the canon that Jane Austen does, now.
That is brainless bullshit, and dogmatic with it.
So? In the society of this time, that would have been grossly improper to mention. Are you saying Austen is not painting an appropriate picture of the mores of the society about which she is writing?
They’re probably not worried about that because it’s pretty difficult for a naval officer to get his ship in the middle of landlocked Moravia in an infantry battle 🙂
Does a spouse who did a grad degree in comparative literature count?
In the society of this time, that would have been grossly improper to mention.
Nonsense, it’s mentioned in other contemporary books all the time.
It’s not mentioned in any of Austen’s books because it doesn’t happen in any of Austen’s books, because the notion that there was an incredibly destructive war going on with real human consequences for the people and economics of England was just something she was insulated from by her station in life, and she lacked sufficient perspicacity to notice.
Are you saying Austen is not painting an appropriate picture of the mores of the society about which she is writing?
No, I’m saying that in a career of writing about people transcending social mores, she’s amazing unable to peer past her own.
Contra Ophelia, what is there to learn from that? Ophelia portrays Austen as an incredible tutor to writers, I just don’t see how Austen is at all useful to a writer nowadays except as summer beach reading. God knows I’ve never drawn from Austen in my own writing.
Does a spouse who did a grad degree in comparative literature count?
I dunno. Why don’t you ask her what I’m supposed to think is so great about Austen?
OK, so people in her social level wouldn’t feel the effects of the war? Now I’m confused — you seem to be arguing that a) her books aren’t authentic because they don’t mention the impact of the war, and b) that she didn’t feel the impact of the war.
If you have several hours (or days) she’d be delighted to tell you.
Putting aside the education argument, why do you dislike Austen’s writing so much, Chet?
I don’t dislike it all that much, I just don’t enjoy it personally, and it’s substantially overrated by people who don’t really study literature or text criticism.
They’re perfectly fine novels that many people enjoy and have enjoyed for 200 years. Why must it be insisted that they’re among the “greatest works of English literature”? That Jane Austen, a writer blinkered by her own sheltered upbringing, is among “the greatest English-language novelists”? Why pretend that her novels have a fundamental power to change your life?
I mean that’s just being totally ridiculous. I don’t hate Austen but I hate the Austenites who insist that her novels – 18th century beach reading – have some kind of transcendent power.
Did it ever occur to you, Chet, that you have a tin ear for literature, and are unable, because of that, to judge accurately the quality of Austen’s novels? You’ve repeated several times that you think she’s overrated, but you haven’t given one coherent reason for saying that. That means you’re just hyperventilating, so far. How about reading something of Austen’s, then read something about Austen, her style, subtlety, the sensitive nature of her response to English society of the time, and then come back and tell us all this. But merely saying it’s pulp fiction shows that you lack somewhat in cultivation, and need to tune your ear to the beauty of classic English prose.
By all means say that you cannot see why people see in Austen, and then either leave it at that – that’s where a sensible man would have left it quite long ago in this thread – or find out. But don’t bullshit your way in an area where you clearly know nothing at all.
“They’re terrible as novels”
“They’re perfectly fine novels”
These two statements can’t be reconciled. Why the change in tune?
I agree that Ophelia elevated Austen’s work above its station. It isn’t “the best” model for fictional prose: of the non-contemporary authors most commonly compared to Austen, Wodehouse’s playful caricatures of high society were more incisive, Dickens’ characters deeper and more vividly described, Woolf worldlier and more recognizably lyrical. Austen excelled in the delicate art of sketching characters that were funny for their flaws, but still very likable (Dickens, for example, was too heavy-handed for this; Wodehouse came closer) and in lulling the audience into very intimate acquaintance with her heroines. (To your earlier criticism that Austen didn’t really portray the Napoleonic wars, this is why: it would jar her audience out of this feeling of intimacy; Austen was very observant–that’s clear from her prose–that she didn’t write war stories was a stylistic choice and not a result of ignorance.)
I don’t think Austen should be elevated above other great authors, but it’s also unjust to denigrate her on the basis of what a few fanatics have said. And at worst, Ophelia’s hyperbole (“the best”) was no worse than yours (“terrible”).
“it’s substantially overrated by people who don’t really study literature or text criticism.”
Are you seriously claiming that all people who do really study literature or text criticism share your view of Austen? Because if so, you’re making a mistake.
Her novels are not just beach reading. Don’t be fooled by the marriage plot; there is a great deal more to them than that.
And she really was a brilliant stylist, and almost the only architect among 19th century English novelists (E Bronte was the other).
It’s understandable (though a bit sad) not to like her, but to pretend she is mere beach reading is just pathetic.
I suggest reading the essay by Jonathan Gottschall (I think) in which he takes a ‘Darwinian’ approach to Pride & Prejudice and shows how founded in reality and how perceptive it is. It is really rather silly to say that because JA doesn’t bring in the Napoleonic Wars and because she doesn’t try to foment revolution her novels are no good. (Although I certainly agree with Chet’s dislike of early 19th-century social arrangements.)
Gottschall and Somebody Carroll (not Sean) are bringing Darin firmly into the LitCrit parish, to the annoyance of deconstructionists et al, and more power to them.
I did a 5-year BS/MS in computer engineering. Which left virtually no time at all for the humanities. I really wish I had had more of a chance to engage in the humanities (I did take a 20th century literature class at a local community college several years later, and it was a really enriching experience!)
I don’t mean this as a direct rebuttal to your “this displaces more important courses” argument, Jerry… you have a point. But at the same time, my regrets at being limited in what kinds of humanities course I can take makes me resistant to the idea that only the top priority courses should be offered. It is the low priority details that give richness and color to education — and to life in general!
I took a 300-level English course on Arthurian myths, and I probably thought more about my arguments and textual criticism in that course than any other, simply because the material was so interesting and accessible. Nothing shuts the brain off like the impenetrable “Ulysses” or “The Sound and the Fury.”
Zombies are a genre of literature. Why shouldn’t it be studied by people who are interested in it? Exposing themselves to the zombie literature isn’t going to make them zombies, but they might gain much indeed from being motivated to apply textual criticism to a genre they enjoy, not just being forced to apply it to works of dubious merit, cherished only because they’re so difficult to read.
Literature? Did you miss the part about watching 16 movies and reading comics? The course isn’t about literature.
All works are “literature.” Text criticism methods apply just as well to cinema and comics (and, on point, we watched “Lord of the Rings” in my Arthurian class.)
All works may be “literature” but they’re not all literature. Literature is written; that’s what it means. It doesn’t mean “that which can be studied using text criticism methods.”
There is overlap with other media, but there are also differences; it’s pointless to pretend there aren’t.
Comics and cinema are written.
Don’t be silly; movies are not a written medium. The assignment is to watch the movies, not to read the screenplays. Comics are both written and visual, but the emphasis is usually on the visual.
You’re just being ridiculous. They don’t need to study the screenplay – actors are going to read it to them, via the medium of film. They’re going to act it out and everything!
The notion here that you can’t apply criticism to comics or cinema, or that there’s no merit in doing so, is just reactionary anti-intellectualism.
I didn’t say “you can’t apply criticism to comics or cinema”; I said movies are not literature. There’s a difference!
No, there’s not any difference.
You two should meet for coffee sometime. In the meantime, let me chime in again with a book I’m sure you’ll both devour:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice_and_Zombies
(That said, I never intend to read such boring trash.)
OB – Shakespeare was meant to be seen, not read, and I’m pretty sure that you would consider his plays “literature”, maybe even “great literture”.
What you mean is, Shakespeare wrote for the theater. He wrote his plays to be acted. That’s very true, but it’s also true that the Elizabethan theater was very verbal, very word-heavy. Elizabthan plays were not, at any rate, filmed – there was no set of pictures that constituted a performance. An Elizabethan play is not an exact equivalent of a 21st century screenplay.
You should stop thinking you know what I would consider what. You don’t know jack about me.
Oops, sorry, ignore that last para – I mistook you for Chet. Threading confusion, as usual.
Yes, there is a difference.
No, there’s no any difference – it’s all rendered as story by the human mind. The techniques of criticism you learn in English classes apply to any instance of putting words in a row to mean something. Poetry. Novels. Comics. Movies. Video games, even.
If you thought the point of studying Chaucer or Austen was to learn about Chaucer or Austen, you missed the point of the class entirely. It doesn’t matter what they have you read – the point is not to have read something (you can always look at the Cliff Notes), it’s to teach you the techniques to extract meaning from a work.
And you can learn that from comics and movies just as well as from poetry and novels and essays. Just as well from fiction as from non-fiction. It really doesn’t matter what they have you read or look at, and there’s a considerable advantage to presenting material that students will want to read, watch, and think about due to their interest, as opposed to material that they will simply crib from Wikipedia and Spark Notes because its impenetrable and boring. It’s better for the students and its better for the educational objective.
“the point is not to have read something (you can always look at the Cliff Notes), it’s to teach you the techniques to extract meaning from a work.”
Nonsense. It’s a lot of things. If all you’re doing is learning the techniques to extract meaning from a work, you’re committing the fallacy of the paraphrase. There is more to literature than “the meaning” and more to studying it than “techniques to extract meaning.” There is for instance the ability to recognize rhetorical skill and its absence. You seem to have missed that class. (Here’s a hint: Austen is better at it than Stephen King, and that’s why you’re wrong in your claim that King will occupy “exactly” the same “place” that Austen does in “the canon.”
Nonsense. It’s a lot of things.
Oh, well! That settles it, clearly.
You seem to have missed that class.
Rhetoric is a field of philosophy, not English. (And I notice that your own brand of “it’s true because I say so rhetoric” doesn’t have a very compelling logic behind it, so easy with those accusations.)
I’m sorry that you’re having such a hard-on because I’m not a squealing Austen fan, but the things you’re saying about literature and criticism evince the kind of ignorance of the humanities that you really have to be a scientist to have (and I should know, my major is biochemistry.)
If all you’re doing is learning the techniques to extract meaning from a work, you’re committing the fallacy of the paraphrase.
It’s actually “the heresy of the paraphrase”, and if you had actually studied the New Criticism you’d know that it doesn’t apply here – even New Critics are critics, primarily ones attempting to quantify how much like Samuel Taylor Coleridge a given work is. Again the point of a literature course is how to do criticism, not what you’re actually criticizing. Sure, there’s utility in “brushing up your Shakespeare” (and the ladies you will wow), but that’s culture-dependent class-signalling, not the purpose of an English course.
The point of the class?! Really?! Isn’t the point of studying literature so that you can appreciate it, so that it can enrich your life? Or is literature stomething to be studied in classes? So, in that case, even zombie movies count, as long as you get those points. Oh dear, as the man says, America is going to hell! Because, clearly, people who think they are educated — who have done the classes, obviously — think that that’s what it’s really all about.
Rhetoric is not a field of philosophy. On the contrary.
Good New Critic-Coleridge line though.
As part of a freshman-level popular culture survey, this might be all right. As a junior-level class of its own, it looks terribly anaemic.
I would hate for classes like this to be replacing the study of Shakespeare or the “great” novels, but of course they do to some extent.
Special-topics courses are always at least junior-level.
And frankly I find it surprising that you think it’s the freshman-level courses that are supposed to be the easy A’s. In every university I’ve ever taken classes at – 6 of them – it’s the 100-level stuff that’s the hardest.
When I really feel like a break, I register for a graduate-level course as an undergrad. Those courses are always easy A’s.
Freshman level courses are often surveys of or introductions to wider subjects. This sort of material might be an interesting assignment in analysing a bit of pop culture, good for a short section of a survey course, but a whole semester of zombie movies and comics seems a waste of time.
And no, freshman classes are not harder than graduate classes — not the ones I’ve had, anyway.
These classes keep the zombie students (the ones who sign up for such classes) out of the science classroom. That helps in maintaining high quality in the sciences.
nwricket, your first sentence reads better without the parenthetical definition.
I think Jerry is wrong to dismiss courses on zombie literature out of hand, but he may well be right in this instance. Wouldn’t it depend on how deep the analysis was? (IMHO, zombies have a lot less depth than vampires, especially in the light of the vampires’ latest, um, incarnation.)
Romero is no Dostoyevsky, true. Hard to see the career advantages of a firm grounding in post-apocalyptic horror.
Oh, look, an optimist. How cute!
Or a firm grounding in Dostoyevsky, for that matter.
I think you’re dramatically overestimating the practical value of literature studies.
Back in the mid-70’s I was teaching in a mid-western university. One of my colleagues applied for and got a grant to study the lyrics of rock-and-roll songs. He got the grant and bought nearly 200 LPs, which we all eventually enjoyed.
It’s hard to get more de-basic than that.
This actually brings up a really, really important point.
Much of Medieval and Renaissance music is popular songs that were the ancient equivalent of today’s pop charts.
Doing the kind of analysis you describe on, say, John Dowland’s madrigals wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow. So why should it be any different with Bob Dylan’s songs instead? Why is Opera Buffa suitable for scholars but today’s Broadway musicals aren’t? Who decided that you can write a dissertation on Strauss Waltzes but not whatever-it-is-that-kids-are-dancing-to-this-month?
It’s not just the aesthetic qualities of the works. There’s always been more crap produced than great works. We tend to think of the old stuff as being great because it’s been filtered to the point that nobody bothers with the old crap any more, but I guarantee you that lots of those scholars are spending lots and lots of time on old crap. And there are still geniuses producing great works these days.
Jerry: what would you think of a modern dissertation on vampires in 19th century literature? What about golems in 19th century literature? Imagine it’s a couple centuries from now. Would you then have any trouble with somebody writing a dissertation on the zombie genre of the 21st century? If the one is okay but other not, can you offer any objective reasons for the difference?
Cheers,
b&
Jerry, your casual dismissal of the zombie genre in film and comics reminds me of the times in college when your fellow science-types would disparage modern or abstract art by saying “I could do THAT!” The fact that you assume this is a meaningless class reveals more about your narrow mindedness than it reveals about the actual course content.
Other than that, I’m a big fan. I thoroughly enjoyed “Why Evolution is True” and I borrow from it often when discussing Darwin with friends and colleagues.
Why the one is okay and the other isn’t: a matter of time? At least, there is a valid argument that if a work of art has stood the test of time, it’s worth of study, even if it was not “serious art” in its own period. For instance, we think a lot now of the prose writings of Voltaire (letters, novels, pamphlets) but more or less ignore his poetry and plays, even though he thought those were his best work and would grant him immortality. And he touhgt of the letters, tales and polemic writings as the equivalent of journalism.
Well, it is amazing how a bunch of folks who purport to be scientifically minded can make such prejudgments sans evidence.
Maybe the professor is actually good at the old “lure ’em in with a gimmick, then teach critical thinking” flimflam.
If you don’t know the specifics, I get to remain skeptical of your so-called “conclusions”.
And anyway, studying pop culture is a perfectly legitimate line of inquiry, both for the humanities and the social sciences. Disregarding the insights that both of those fields can bring to light would be… “unintelligent”, is most charitable way I can put it.
I’ve found that lots of people on the “science degree” side of college get a bit tetchy with the humanities. They can often get down with the whole “literature thing” that’s got Plato’s Republic, Moby Dick, etc. as “legitimate.”
But a lot of them also think that whole thing is a bit of a willy-whack and the money could be better spent on more lab space, new computer labs, etc…
So, I’m not surprised. When you’ve had to fight through a seriously complex and difficult degree program. Went through the hell of getting funding and into academia. And, once you’re there, you’ve got to fight for every dollar and have to constantly scrimp…
And then some “light weight, pop culture, easy A, no work” course comes along… I understand the feeling. I’m sure I’d feel that way too after all that work in a difficult academic discipline and some wanker comes up with a fluff course…
And then some “light weight, pop culture, easy A, no work” course comes along… I understand the feeling.
In my experience “light weight, pop culture, easy A, no work” describes a lot of bioinformatics courses, especially at the graduate level.
I’m not disparaging bioinformatics as a subject, I’m just saying, easy A courses aren’t foreign to the sciences. How much money and time does it take to teach a Chinese grad student how to run a sequence comparison in BLAST?
Oh come on – yes it is possible to learn something by analyzing pop culture etc etc etc, but do you seriously think this is not a lazy option? Do you seriously think this is just as good as learning something you’re not already familiar with?
Again, we don’t really know enough about the course.
For the one serious literature course I got to take as part of my engineering degree, our final paper was to analyze an example of millenialism in popular culture. I ended up doing a 7+ page paper on a single Tool song. I was most certainly not unfamiliar with Tool, but doing this kind of close analysis on the lyrics and how they related to certain cultural features gave me a whole new perspective on it. It was really worthwhile for me.
Is this a lazy option? Maybe. The option to do a storyboard instead of a final paper does not inspire confidence. But we don’t have enough info to say for sure. If this course stimulates students to look at this aspect of pop culture in a completely different way, that is “learning something you’re not already familiar with”, IMO.
Well okay, if the course is different from what the article says, then who knows, but given the information in the article, it sounds like a lazy option for students who don’t want to do much reading or writing.
You might well be right. OTOH, the article is clearly trying to spin it that way, to provoke exactly the reaction in the reader that they got from Jerry: “Oh noes, these kids today are not getting a real edumacation anymore!” My reaction is more a shrug than anything else.
And honestly, it depends soooo much on the teacher. Even apparently solid obviously-worthwhile classes can be an abject waste of time with a lousy teacher. One class I took was about VLSI design and such (can’t recall the exact name of the course) which, given that my major was computer engineering, should have been rather important to my degree. But I didn’t learn a damn thing, because the instructor was confusing and boring.
Well sure, but the subject matter is still relevant. You’re right about the article of course, but then again, the article may just be right. Tertiary education is a scarce resource, and there really is something offensive about wasting some of it on fluff.
The notion that zombies are “fluff” and Jane Austen is “LIHHH-tura-TURE!” (cue stentorian voice) is the notion being ridiculed here, Ophelia. Jane Austen was only trying to sell books. Shakespeare’s only goal was to put asses in seats. There’s not some alternate mercantile-artistic process that produces “great works” instead of popular-culture works. The same process produces both because they’re the same thing.
The guy who can quote all the lines from Star Wars is not “worse educated” than the guy who can quote all the lines from Hamlet. The purpose of a literature education is to extract meaning from works not make judgement about which works are “great” and which works are popular but don’t count for some reason. And it takes a very narrow and blinkered person to insist that if students aren’t writing the same boring essays about the same boring books by the same boring European authors, they’re not being “educated.” The fact is that it doesn’t matter what they read or watch. What matters is how they’re taught to look for the meaning in it. By that standard this thread contains a very large number of very poorly educated people, indeed.
Absolutely, but I think it is undeniable as well that some works actually have more meaning and can support more analysis than others. There is simply more to say about The Wire than Grey’s Anatomy, and about Moby Dick than Twilight.
(That said, I imagine interesting courses could be taught analyzing medical dramas through the ages, and looking at how the vampire mythology has changed.)
“Better” works of art are simply richer, and offer more when examined. Not all art is equal. That is not to say that only dead white guys (and the dead white chick Austen) make good art, as we can make these judgements independent of the “canon”. But they are not judgements without any sort of foundation — all is not relative.
Austen was not only trying to sell books; she was doing more than that. And the childish nonsense about literachoor all in caps and stentorian voice is just that – childish nonsense.
This patronizing crap about the canon and popularity is not brand new you know. I have heard it before, several times. You seem to have swallowed it without thinking.
And the childish nonsense about literachoor all in caps and stentorian voice is just that – childish nonsense.
What’s childish is the attitude you’re defending: “oh, the stuff I like is a Great Work, and the stuff you like is popular garbage.” In addition to the racist cultural attitudes it generally assumes, it’s an immature critic indeed who can’t tell the difference between a work that is good and a work they like, as you obviously can’t do with Austen.
Is it your argument that those two are always equivalent, and that a work can never be judged as “good” (or at least “better than some other work”)?
Chet, you’re acting like a spoiled child. Are you really just a spoiled child?
Chet, as I’ve said several times now, you are the one who assumed and said that I cite Austen only because I like her; I have said repeatedly that that is wrong. I know the difference between liking X and thinking X is good. I think some things are good without liking them (Dante for example) and I like some things without thinking they’re good (or very good, or brilliant, or what have you).
You claim to have learned how to “extract meaning,” don’t you? Yet you can’t seem to grasp even this basic point.
Actually, the option to do a storyboard instead of a final paper should inspire more confidence than less. Because it’s not easy. At least if done properly.
Fraid I don’t agree with you on this one Jerry. Doesn’t irritate me in the slightest. Would you complain if they were studying, say the pulp detective novels of Chandler and Hammet? Now if there was a DEGREE in zombie studies (and I’m sure there is somewhere!) you might have a point. We run a course “From Frankenstein to the Matrix”, on science in culture. The students have to read Mary Shelley, *and* watch the Matrix. What’s your beef, exactly?
I think it’s that those damn kids today, with their loud hippity-hop music and underwear showing, are always getting on his lawn.
🙂
I took film and theater. Having had to sit through Johnny Guitar and then spend another class discussing it’s attributes. And while I recognize Johnny Guitar does have a small cult following, it’s a bad movie.
Bad casting. Bad dialog. Bad cinematography (especially the night scenes which were obviously shot during the day then the production values tweaked).
And, of course, the ham-handed anti-hero aspect over-layed with a McCarthy sub-text that screamed instead being portrayed in a subtle fashion.
It was just bad. But the teacher LOVED it. And was quite butt-hurt when everyone in the class hated the cheezy thing.
So, really, I’d rather watch a B-Film Zombie movie. At least we’d all agree it was “just a zombie” movie. And not pretend it was subtle gender/social commentary art.
Of course, that was better than theology… Or my Chinese Philosophy course which was taught by a man I am convinced was insane. I don’t mean “eccentric professor,” either. I mean right up there with John Davidson…
Curious as to where you went to school. I had an Eastern Philosophy professor I would describe the same way at Georgia State University.
“Bad casting. Bad dialog. Bad cinematography (especially the night scenes which were obviously shot during the day then the production values tweaked). ”
Ah yes, but so, so enjoyable if you like watching Joan Crawford parody herself!
“You can stop. . . .spinning the wheel.”
I’m sure someone will defend this debasement of education and explain why watching zombie flicks and reading zombie comics makes you a better-educated person.
Meanwhile, someone please explain to me why reading any written works by Nathaniel Hawthorne makes one a better-educated person.
Seriously, most forms of literature start as pop culture; I’ve always viewed English departments as “pop-culture history departments.” It appears that English professors agree with me. And frankly, I think the progressive messages hidden in “Dawn of the Dead” are more relevant to my life than anything Hawthorne ever wrote.
No vicious circle responses. “One is better educated for having read ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter'” is not an answer to my question any more than “One is better educated for having watched ‘Dawn of the Dead'” is to Coyne’s.
I think the progressive messages hidden in “Dawn of the Dead” are more relevant to my life than anything Hawthorne ever wrote.
Or could be complete projection. Hidden messages often are.
The meanings that are there by author intent are not different than the meanings that are there by audience perception. There’s no difference between the two – even the author’s intent is something that has to be filtered by audience perception.
You really should have taken an English class.
Exactly. Otherwise, Moby Dick would be total crap and of no value. Melville had to have most the underlying themes pointed out to him.
What’s wrong with a zombie course?
University is not only about the serious stuff, you can take all kind of courses in various topics just for fun – or to be better informed – such as subgenres in popular culture.
I’ve taken some philosophy courses, and I have to say that I doubt that a zombie course can be less beneficial than those.
Here you sound a lot like Sarah Palin rolling her eyes at “science” and assuming the phrase “fruit fly research in Paris” to be self-evidently ridiculous. Anti-intellectualism is always ugly, even when directed at the humanities. As others have already deftly pointed out, there is nothing inherently debasing about deconstructing pop culture. It’s no different than basing a physics class on comic book superheroes. You’ll note that this is a high level English course (“Zombies 101” is actually “English 333“), so you have to have a fair bit of English Literature studies under your belt before they’ll even let you take the class. If you’re so curious to learn how reading zombie comics can make you a better-educated person, perhaps you should sign up.
The point isn’t that it’s “debasing,” the point is that it’s lazy. It’s privilege, wasting time, energy, money and resources. It’s conspicuous consumption.
And how do you know this, exactly? Are you basing your accusations on nothing but this short blurb? How very measured of you.
Many aspiring writers and playwrights take English courses. Having the option to pen an original composition in place of a term paper that demonstrates comprehension of the source material sounds creative, practical, useful, and challenging. Perfect for training aspiring writers and developing practical skills that will translate into future careers. Maybe you should investigate why the University considered this class worthwhile enough to offer to its students before succumbing to knee-jerk scorn. You might find your preconceptions challenged.
I had no idea we had so many film and comic-book majors on WEIT!
Ophelia, I see your point, but I doubt that phrases like “privilege” and “conspicuous consumption” apply here, you know…
I have nothing to say about zombies, but it did remind me that I’m still sad I couldn’t take Growing Fruit for Fun and Profit because it conflicted with Semantics.
Jesus was a zombie. But Lazarus was the first. Lots of biblical references to zombies too – do it. You won’t.
Many of us who inhabit English departments don’t condone this kind of stuff, thanks very much.
It’s a question of priorities. Every time another “keep ’em happy” course like this is proposed, I say to my colleagues that so long as so many of our students are still writing sentences in which the subjects and verbs don’t agree, and so long as so many of them still exhibit lackluster critical-reading skills, we shouldn’t be teaching them courses on the TV show “Lost” or on Archie comics. This is a 300-level course, which probably means juniors and seniors who are probably majors (which bugs me in a slightly different way, but still).
At any rate, such courses are indefensible. I always tell my advisees not to take these “fun” courses because, among other things, it looks dopey on their transcript.
Really? More dopey than a course on Austen?
Ha! Indeed, the difference between a course that examines the work of one of the finest novelists who ever lived and a course about zombie movies, should be obvious to anyone who has had any exposure to either. (Go ahead. Call me a snob.)
It’s not that zombie movies and comics are not worthy of academic study. Rather, once again, it’s about priorities. Have the students at that institution really understood Chaucer so thoroughly that they can dedicate entire English Department courses to goddamn zombies? It’s nothing against zombies. Chaucer before zombies in the English Department, is all I’m saying.
Same here. I had a joke marker at the end of that comment but it didn’t show up!
If life, and time to be a student, and resources were all infinite, then fine, zombie courses, whatever. But they’re not.
Chaucer before zombies in the English Department, is all I’m saying.
Why? Be specific.
And where does that logic end? Do they also have to have understood Charles Dickens? William Makepeace Thackeray? Wilkie Collins? Joseph Fielding? How deep into the canon must one go before one is permitted to analyze popular culture? (And given the mention of the above authors, that should probably be “current popular culture, since they were all popular in their day.)
One is (of course) permitted to analyze popular culture, period; the question is why waste the resources of the English department on doing that? When there is other, less familiar material to study, why use time and resources to study material that is more accessible and easy? What is the point?
I’m quite sure the resources of the English department would be better spent on biomedical research, and English majors better used as technicians in science labs, but that’s not the point of having an English department. Literature criticism is what English departments do, and when the university is too small to have its own Film Studies department, film criticism classes are usually classified as “English” (again, because the techniques of criticism are the same.)
What is the point?
Gosh, I feel like I’ve only told you six times or so, but the point is to teach you how to extract meaning from a work. Not to have you memorize Chaucer, Austen, or the last two lines of “Ozymandias”.
Doing that to a work that is familiar and accessible and not strip-mined of all truly novel interpretation like the so-called “great works” usually are has educational merit. That’s why “Watchmen” is now so frequently a part of most university “Masterworks” classes.
Of course, if students didn’t know of the poem “Ozymandias”, they’d get less out of Watchmen. Obviously Alan Moore knows the so-called “great works” and puts them into his writing intentionally — doesn’t that make it worthwhile knowing his references?
As I said upthread, I think the academic study of zombies may well bear fruit. The Cultural Studies department would be a fine place to carry on such research. The Film department would work, too. Folks in American Studies departments seem to thrive on this sort of thing. Go for it. For me it’s a question of what an English department’s priorities should be.
I can answer both Chet and Tulse thusly: Make a list of the Top 100 things that you believe to be most important for English departments to teach undergraduates. A good list would have things like “critical reading/thinking skills,” “the ABC’s of literary criticism,” “basic grammar” and “the fundamentals of research and citation” on it. (My list would have “major” authors on it, “Shakespeare,” “Milton,” “Dickens,” etc.) Now, does the word “zombies” appears anywhere on your list? If it does not, then you are acknowledging that zombies are not a priority for English departments that already have much to teach (and often don’t do a good enough job with the most basic/important things). My argument is one of venue. This material would best be taught outside the English department.
Andy, I’m arguing that one can teach critical reading/thinking skills, the ABCs of literary criticism, basic grammar, and the fundamentals of research and citation using works about zombies.
Indeed, I’d argue that teaching students that one can apply critical apparatus even to zombie movies and novels is an important lesson about critical thinking in general, namely that it is not limited in application solely to a canonical 100 Great Books, but is instead an approach and attitude that one can take toward any work (and which may reward one for doing so to a greater or lesser extent). This kind of course can make students aware that analysis and close reading are not just for English class, but that these are skills that have application well beyond the usual group of Dead White Guys. I think that such a lesson is well worth teaching, even if it means they don’t learn about Smollett or Hardy.
I don’t disagree, Tulse. One can use zombies to teach critical thinking, textual analysis, and all sorts of stuff. But I (at one point in my career) actually had to be responsible for a department. I had to strategize the curriculum; I had to justify courses to the dean, to other chairs, to parents. I had to look these people in the eye and defend this Mickey-Mouse stuff. (The only way you taught something like this under me is if you had tenure and you, therefore, could not be stopped by Earthly means). My position is that these “keep ’em happy” courses don’t help anyone. It makes the faculty member look trite and unprofessional to admins (who are always watching), and it looks dumb on the student’s transcript.
It sounds like your objections are about the perceptions that others might have about the course, and not its direct pedagogical value. I’d hope that someone with a say in departmental curriculum would not be so influenced by non-academic forces.
Perception matters. And being co-chair of a department, for the relatively short time that I was, is precisely what taught me that perception matters. Does it matter how the university community views you? How parents view you? Admins? You bet it does. If you run your department as though these things didn’t matter, you’d run it right into the ground.
On the pedagogical question, let’s remember that I’m no anomaly. Plenty of nerdy English profs like me think that things like zombies should be set aside in favor of things like Emily Dickinson. Just how many courses in zombies and the like would it be permissible for an English major (or any student) to take? Am I to have graduating seniors who have not read Beowulf, but have seen every episode of “House” in their 400-level course they took of the TV series? If, as you suggest, we can teach the same concepts with these sorts of courses, then what’s the limit? Why teach the canon at all?
OK, but again that’s not about the pedagogical value of the material — that is university politics. I’m not saying that isn’t important in the grand scheme of things, but presumably this university thought the perception wouldn’t be a problem, so I don’t think that argument applies here.
Well, that’s not actually an argument.
I’m not questioning teaching the canon (although I presume you have a cogent answer to your above question), but instead asking how deep does one go into the canon before one deals with other material? Is it more important that students read Trollope or demonstrate the ability to critique material that has not already been hashed over a million times?
As Werd noted, Jesus was a zombie. Too bad Pilate nailed him to a cross instead of shooting him the head. That would have ended a great deal of trouble.
WOW – HAHA! harsh but hilarious
I would be fascinated to learn how familiar the detractors here are with zombie movies and comics.
Have you ever read The Walking Dead?
Have you ever seen the Romero movies (particularly the original dead trilogy) or 28 days later?
It is quite possible that this teacher is going to run the course in a lazy and irresponsible way. In principle however it would be perfectly reasonable to teach a zombie course.
As for those who say that the themes of consumerism, isolation, etc. are simply being “read in” by enthusiastic viewers. Have you ever heard a single interview with a director of a decent zombie film? They are well aware of the themes they are drawing on.
Again, the class could be (probably is) a soft option, and that sucks if its true. Maybe not though, and none of that changes the fact that it should not be immediately dismissed in principle. I have had sections of english classes taught on zombie movies that were fascinating. Then we went back to the Dostoevsky, Austen, and Orwell.
What would be the bigger waste of time, a course on film zombies or a course on philosopher’s zombies?
Is it really fair to make fun of Pop Culture majors/minors. If there was a food chain of academia, they’d be somewhere around the level of the chemoautotrophs- only able to survive and replicate in surroundings where there’s a lot of wasted energy (funding).
If zombies evolved from humans, why are there still humans?
*ducks and runs*
In most films, the zombies are trying very hard to remedy that situation.
Unfortunately, in reality, that also seems the case with chimpanzees and humans … (humans trying to ‘remedy’ chimpanzees “still being around”).
It’s, like, a metaphor.
Yeah, kinda like a big white whale.
I did a minor in lit, and the thing about lit classes is that most are cross-disciplinary to some degree. I had a South African lit class that was more about politics and history than literature, a post-modernist lit class that was more about philosophy, and a medieval lit class that dealt heavily in old and middle English. The zombie class is clearly crossing over into cinematography. I see nothing wrong with that, as long as it’s an elective and not the core of the program.
Also, most of the better lit programs require that non-Western literature be read in the original language. So a class on the novels of Dostoevsky is not likely unless you are studying Russian for your language requirement.
No one seems to have gone to see what the damn course is actually about, nor who’s running it in what context or what *they* think about it. Here’s the press statement from here:
No sign that Jane Austen or Chaucer or anyone else (including the students) is suffering particularly here.
http://www.ubalt.edu/news/index.cfm?id=1295
New Course Explores Use of Zombies in Pop Culture
Part of UB’s Minor in Pop Culture in School of Communication Design
September 7, 2010
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
Grendel did it. So did Frankenstein, Dracula, Cujo, and the Golem. Eventually, all great literary and cinematic monsters leap from the page or screen into popular culture. And from there, it’s just a small step into the college classroom.
This fall, the University of Baltimore is rolling out its new pop culture minor with a course on zombies. The course’s instructor, Arnold T. Blumberg, M.A. ’96, D.C.D. ’04, visiting professor in UB’s School of Communication Design and co-author of Zombiemania: 80 Movies to Die For, literally wrote the book on the subject. It’s one of only a handful of courses like it in the country.
The zombie—a creature who starts life as a normal human being, but through one process or another becomes “undead” and then wreaks havoc on the living—is used again and again in film, TV, print media of all kinds, video games, and even in popular music (the infamous “Thriller” video) to convey a basic loss of control and ability to reason with something that is basically indifferent, yet extremely motivated. The zombie, as it appears in modern Western culture, has become allegorical for an unthinking, unfeeling way of living and relating to others, and a bellwether of complete social collapse. At the same time, the zombie is unaware of the damage it is causing, because it is not, well, alive.
“It’s part of the American mindset,” Blumberg said. “The zombie functions as an allegory for all sorts of things that play out in our country, whether it’s the threat of communism during the Cold War or our fears about bioterrorism in 2010. It’s relatively easy to connect the zombie to what is happening in culture.”
UB’s School of Communications Design Director Jonathan Shorr sees zombies in a larger context:
“We know from archaeologists and anthropologists that a society’s artifacts tell us a lot about what that culture valued and feared,” Shorr said. “Stories about King Arthur, for example—from Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in the 15th century, to Prince Valiant in the 1950’s, then T.H. White’s The Once and Future King in the 1960s and John Boorman’s Excalibur in the ’80’s—aren’t stories about 9th century England as much as about the culture of the time in which the work was produced. The same is true with zombies.”
“Even major fans of zombies—and they’re out there, by the millions,” says Blumberg, “—may not spend time contemplating the underlying meaning of this monster, despite its potency. It takes some close attention to really understand what a given film, book or graphic novel is saying about the zombie—and what zombies are saying about the culture. That’s what we’ll be getting into this fall.”
Blumberg, curator of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, has done extensive research into the genre, and the course will spend some time looking at the history and legacy of this particular “brand” of monster, from the recent 28 Days Later, to George Romero’s acclaimed Night of the Living Dead and its sequels, to the first commercial film that featured a zombie, 1932’s White Zombie, with Bela Lugosi. The course also will consider the zombie in literature and folklore, as well as the (pseudo) science that is occasionally brought in to prove the existence of zombies.
“We’ll have fun with it, but we’ll also give it a serious look in different contexts, like that of American progress,” Blumberg said. “To the zombie, our progress doesn’t matter at all. They just keep coming after us, usually at a pretty slow pace, but nonetheless we can’t stop them even though we have the weapons and a lock on the door. They’re relentlessness, and the fact that they’re our own family and friends turning on us, says something profound about our society.”
Now we’re all going to *hit* the site and they will offer the class at 3 different times next semester. 8 am (Zombies and J. Austen). 12 noon (General Studies). 6:40pm (Zombies Duuude!).
Ballmer’s fulla zombies. They’re just studying their own kind in that course. And Pittsburgh (Romero’s base) is far enough away that he could safely document it.
Anyway, it’s better than a course on some sort of woo that I saw in listing of the community college here some yrs back. (I’ve forgotten what exactly – paranormal something or other, and it didn’t seem to be a debunking course). And also far better that they’re taking ANYTHING @ U Ballmer than at some bible college.
Also, over the past few yrs a place in a fairly sedate neighborhood here that I drive past on the way home has had a succession of aging Nissans with Zombie Recovery Squad stenciled on the door, and a bloody rubber foot sticking out of the trunk. Always gives me a smile when I pass it.
I can imagine film discussion groups, but an entire course on zombies? The students need to think long and hard about their career prospects. It could be worse; they could be studying Australian TV shows as some states in Australia require of their high school students. Australians are bad enough at English and I fail to see what they’re meant to learn from their generally mindless, puerile, unimaginative and copycat TV shows. We didn’t call the TV “The Idiot Box” and “The Boob Tube” for nothing.
There is a lot of material, in various media, that deal with zombies.
There is a lot of material, but is it worth wasting hours of your life talking about it?
I thought that’s precisely the issue under discussion.
And let’s not forget that zombies are scary precisely because they sit at the very bottom of the “uncanny valley”–which is likely an evolved cognitive mechanism in primates.
And then awhile after @27 I thought, no, proof that America has REALLY gone to hell would be a college course on Reality TV. And then I checked.
To wit (and NB that it’s in the Heartland, and 7y/o to boot!):
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1148.html
Still not convinced? http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-17/reality-tv-spreads-to-college-classrooms/
I rest my case.
If this course had been “Gothic Horror from The Castle of Otranto to Varney the Vampire” no-one would have batted an eye, even though those writings were the 18th and 19th C. equivalents of zombie movies, and regarded with the same disdin by the educated at the time.
Zombies… they WERE your friends!
Yet is it any worse than teaching any other form of popular ‘culture’? Teaching students to be dicriminating with sources & media is the most useful thing if they do that. I didn’t need to be taught that as I learnt it for myself by asking questions.
Discriminating I mean! Cannot type… was never taught!
Until we sequence zombie DNA, how can we possibly hope to understand them? Somebody call Francis Collins.