OxBlog

Friday, May 02, 2003

# Posted 2:02 AM by Patrick Belton  

ACADEMIA MEETS SIMPSONS: Several years ago, I remember reading a piece in the Yale Herald in which the student author enthused about a day in the distant future when students would watch episodes of the Simpsons in a library basement while working on term papers on late 20th century U.S. culture. Well, the future is now. The academic papers on the Simpsons range from "Simpson Ethics" to "An Analysis of the Medical Care in the Simpsons" to this one arguing the Simpsons are really Sephardic crypto-Jews. Open question to the academics in the blogosphere: is it too late to change my dissertation topic?

UPDATE: And I've gotten an answer! Ann Haker writes in from LA that, as she puts it, an "honest to goodness talking head" (thanks for putting my professional ambitions so appositely, Ann), CSIS's Anthony Cordesman, came up with a 42-page essay on the lessons Buffy the Vampire Slayer can teach us in a post-9/11 world. (I would insert a comment here that Buffy doesn't rise to the Simpsons-esque level of enduring cultural criticism, but half of the blogosphere seems to watch the show; and I'm two degrees of dating-separation from Buffy - via a New Haven townie - so I'll let her off the hook this time.....)
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