“Seinfeld,” “The Simpsons” and Marilyn Manson might be moving from the dorm room to the classroom as the study of pop culture gains respect as a legitimate academic field.
Several universities and colleges — including Northwestern — have started to offer courses dealing with pop culture. Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, for example, recently offered a class that used episodes of “Star Trek” to offer a stepping stone toward a critical analysis of religion.
At NU, several professors are supplementing textbooks in their classes with movies, music and TV shows. Sociology Prof. Bernard Beck’s Winter Quarter course Sociology of Pop Culture teaches students about the events and people that have shaped society through the years.
Beck said he believes that pop culture deserves as much credibility as any other class subject.
“Anything that can be learned can be learned in an academic environment,” Beck said. “(Pop culture) is a major part of contemporary society, and just like sociology of arts or (of) religion, this is another great topic to learn about general issues.”
In Beck’s class, students have learned about issues in movies, television and music, with occasional discussions about computer games and sports.
“We learned about the ways sports have been viewed over time, about how it has become a corporate thing,” said Weinberg senior John Dony.
Dony, a former Daily columnist, said he is taking Beck’s class because he thought it would be interesting to learn about something in an academic environment that everyone already knows about.
Beck cited various departments at NU that use pop culture in their courses as proof of the subject’s legitimacy.
In addition to Beck’s sociology class, radio-TV-film Prof. Jeffrey Sconce taught a graduate course called Popular Culture in the Mass Media last year, and sociology Prof. Gary A. Fine taught Class and Culture. For his class Fine has used pop culture to illustrate sociological issues.
Fine has used the music of Marilyn Manson, Kid Rock and Eminem to demonstrate feelings of alienation in American society. He has taken class polls to see whether cultural or racial differences influence which TV shows students watch.
Incorporating media such as popular TV shows into the curriculum has benefited the class, Fine said.
“Because pop culture is performed to many, we can begin with a shared knowledge,” he said. “The class starts on (the same) level with each other and with me. Then it’s my job to explain how (pop culture) relates to American life.”
But some students also have expressed concerns about the value of learning about pop culture.
“There’s always the idea that I won’t utilize this (knowledge) in the future,” Dony said about information he gained in Beck’s class.
Fine said studying pop culture can be useful in understanding major themes in society, as long as it is used in moderation.
“Pop culture has importance, but it’s not the totality of modern intellectual life,” Fine said. “It’s like with food: If all you ate was dessert, that wouldn’t be healthy. It’s a question of balance.”
