<p>Although it is fun to mock courses that appear to be on trivial topics, there is nothing inherently more useful about studying Greek literature than comic books. Neither is likely to get you a higher paying job. It is impossible to know how intellectually rigorous the course might be, the depth of analysis, the writing and reasoning level expected, from reading a one-line summary course description. They might be fluff, they might be extremely challenging. The people who teach these courses are often full professors at top colleges, with more than a dozen serious scholarly books published, and a deep understanding of their fields. One of the points of teaching on these popular topics is to show that the scholarly approach is not restricted to traditional topics. So one can identify conventional views of heroic character from popular sources, without having to limit consideration to the classics. In many of these courses someone who had not read a good introduction to the classics would be lost in the discussions.</p>
<p>M's mom raised an excellent point about saving money with a heavy core. Not only does it occupy faculty in departments that can attract few students on their own, but it relieves pressure to offer new courses, for which they might have to hire more faculty. It makes enrollments much more predictable. Absent these requirements, each semester is a statistical guessing game as to what the enrollments would be. If there is a long list of requirements, then the college can look at the remaining courses required for each student and make a pretty good prediction of what the enrollment pattern would have to be. At one extreme, St. John's has essentially no choices, so they can tailor their faculty resources to exactly the sequence of courses students will take. They can offer small classes across the board, with a relatively small faculty.</p>
<p>Quote:
*Although it is fun to mock courses that appear to be on trivial topics, there is nothing inherently more useful about studying Greek literature than comic books. Neither is likely to get you a higher paying job. *</p>
<p>Yes, because all going to college is about is earning more money. Golly! Here I thought it was about becoming learned. Silly me. </p>
<p>The death of the Great Books curriculum in higher education is the greatest educational disaster of the last century. There is nothing wrong about learning about books written by dead white men if those books have the resonance and power to transcend their times and live forever. The problems of Plato are the problems of today: the nature of political power, the pursuit of knowledge, etc. These great idea do not become outdated. They have things to say to people from all times; it is this timeless quality that denotes a classic. The idea and scope of a Great Books curriculum should be expanding, not shrinking. College classes that simply follow the great trends of the times, whether they be pop culture or pseudo philosophy, cannot posses that very timeless quality that will transcend their time and be for all times. Our intellectual and artistic history tell us more about ourselves and the times we live in then any dimestore novel ever could. One must never forget that it was a previous generation of European Christians who decided that they had moved beyond the Greeks and the Romans and had found the answer to every one of life's problems in the Bible. These were the Dark Ages; and if it wasn't for the Islamic Platonists and Aristotelians, Great Classical Thought may have been lost forever. Remember those immortal words of George Santayana: "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." By ignoring the Great Books, we are condemned to make the same mistakes our ancestors did. By turning our back on the past, we let those great immortals, whose works have inspired our greatest minds, to die. </p>
<p>Do we really want to be the generation that lost Plato? Or Shakespeare? Or Goethe? Oh well. Our parents may have had the Bronte's and the Raionalists at their fingertips, but we'll have our comic book and rock music classes. Who needs Socrates when you've got Spiderman? Won't civilazation be so much better off?</p>
<p>Hahaha zarathustra, I of course agree with you but I think we're confusing a few things here.</p>
<p>Schools like Chicago, Reed, Columbia, Whitman et. al. have a compulsory "great books" requirement. For all the reasons you mentioned and more, sitting down for a few hours with one of these texts is confusing, frustrating, and ultimately enlightening. Sometimes.</p>
<p>Where I and probably many posters feel iffy is when a student is given a distribution requirement to fulfill, and he or she chooses topics that he or she already knows a lot about (pop culture, etc.) I do agree that these courses can be rigorous, but I'm wondering if you are going to take one course outside your major, should it be something relevant only to the past five years or something relevant to the past few centuries?</p>
<p>That said, Chicago offers a lot of courses on "pop culture." If you check out the anthropology listings, you'll see course listings for the culture of modern transportation, the politics of museums, consumerism, etc. If you look at the English course listings, you'll see some courses in graphic novels, video games, science fiction, etc. These courses are legitimate (believe me), but they are balanced by Great Books.</p>
<p>I definitely agree there can be something to be taken out of pop culture classes and the like, but what I lament is not that there is the choice to take these classes, but that they are quietly replacing the classes that embody real gravitas; it isn't that the courses are pervasive and corrosive in and of themselves, it's that a culture that sees no difference between them and the classics cannot understand greatness. Even worse than the pop culture classes (which I will admit are largely harmless by themselves) is the replacement of the classics with the current intellectual trends that supposedly "improves upon" or invalidates the classics. These classes can surely measure the present zeitgeist, but the question as to whether or not it improves on anything is not for the present but the future. That's really all I'm talking about; I don't really know the differences between a Core and a distribution requirement; I just know what I think is the best. I didn't mean to post that much about this topic; I've just finished Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, and it really just inspires me to jump to the defense of a Great Books curriculum.</p>
<p>Scripps has a core currciculum (as opposed to distribution requirements) NOT based upon "Great Books". I happen to think it is by the best of the core curriculum programs (including Chicago's, in which I once taught.)</p>
<p>As for distribution requirements, it has always seemed rather "high schoolish" or "Chinese menuish" to me. I don't think they are intellectually defensible, except as an expression of "well-roundedness". However, gen. ed distribution requirements in the first year may help a student discover (or rediscover) a core interest that she didn't know she had.</p>