Classes that are limited to canonical literature classics do not make much sense to students, at least those that attend the universities I have experienced. Many undergraduate students, especially those in majors that are part of the sciences, only take the required English courses, like First Year or Freshman Composition. In my short experience teaching such a class, I found that an inclusion of popular culture helped me forge a connection to my students that would have been more difficult to cultivate had I kept my discussions limited to the literary canon. Courses for the general population, including many basics, should include popular culture artifacts.
By devoting more time to genres that are more popular (and less canonical), like detective fiction and television, nothing more will be lost. Most students are already missing a contextual frame for the canonical readings they have come across in previous classes. Personally, it was not until I chose to complete a history minor in conjunction with my English undergraduate studies that I learned how important historical context is to understanding most literature. The history classes I took worked well to provide a more in-depth historical background to the works I was reading in my English classes, especially those that dealt with American literature. For example, a history class that I took about the time period between the presidency of Jackson and Lincoln provided me with a historical background that helped me deepen my understanding of texts read in a Harlem Renaissance class I took a semester or two later. Most high school English teachers try to provide this context, but many times, at least in my observation, the contextual lessons about the work are short, limited to one class day at most, and not discussed much in class after that history class. For the most part, students do not try to engage more information about these texts, either, because they do not personally care. Students just know that they are supposed to read these canonical texts because an omniscient ‘They’ has deemed them important; they very rarely understand why 'They' think works like To Kill a Mockingbird or A Tale of Two Cities are so important.
However, when students have a personal interest in their chosen assignment, they are more likely to seek out this context on their own in order to understand the books or popular artifact better. In my own studies, I chose to complete a project over a Raymond Chandler short story in a graduate level class. Chandler’s “Death on Pine Street” was my choice because I enjoyed reading detective fiction and, up until this class, I had not had the time to really engage in any research about this particular popular genre. From my research, though, I learned a lot about the 1920s from another perspective. Typically, the time period of the twenties is taught through a lens of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and other expatriate writers to the detriment of writers like Chandler, who are generally deemed unimportant because of their large lower-class audience. My research into pulp detective fiction gave me insight into the cheaper magazines that a large population was reading at the time. Pulp magazines were serialized and sold for about ten cents, so a great percentage of the population in America was reading them; much like the Victorians read Dickens in England a century earlier. However, Chandler, Hammett, and other pulp fiction writers have not gained nearly the notoriety or canonical importance as Dickens has.
Additionally, the gains made from using popular culture in core courses would far outweigh these losses that have already been felt. In my attempts to engage my First Year Composition classes, I brought up discussions of The Twilight Saga, Kanye West, and popular contemporary television shows, like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Most of these topics had a connection with my own research at the time, and I was able to use the information I was researching to build a bridge between myself and my students. For example, Kanye West, who has no bearing on my current research, and his shenanigans at several awards shows, helped me build an exercise where my students had to propose a solution that would keep Mr. West from causing problems at an awards show they were pretending to produce. The discussion that came from this exercise was lively and engaging while doing the work of showing the students how a paper in the genre I had assigned is supposed to work. The activity also tacitly made the point that they have more freedom in picking a topic for their papers than they may have originally thought they did. This realized freedom was a benefit to me because I did not have to read 25 papers about solving a serious, multi-faceted problem, like childhood obesity or gun violence in America. In an effort to get my students thinking about the criteria they would need for another genre, we watched a short clip from Top Gear, a popular car show aired on BBC, of Jeremy Clarkson reviewing a Ford Fiesta, using criteria like whether or not the trunk was large enough to fit a body or a zebra’s head. This exercise was not mine, originally, but it served its purpose of lulling my students into a more amenable mindset before we had to do the hard work of coming up with their own sets of criteria for their own chosen subjects.
Furthermore, the inclusion of popular culture makes professors and their teachings seem more approachable and relatable to hesitant students. If I know that my professor watches some of the sam
e television shows or reads some of the same popular fiction as I do, I am more likely to engage them in conversation outside of class, if I see them at the elevators or the like. In addition to making interactions with faculty less awkward, popular culture has a place in higher education because of the fact, simply, that it is popular culture. These television shows and New York Times Bestsellers are the things that students are paying attention to in their limited downtime outside of class. An analysis of the way Empire treats race or a feminist analysis of the differences between the Harry Potter books and movies would give students a greater understanding of the world they are living in right now. Academic work in popular culture would also do the job of making academia more accessible to the public, which might help the liberal arts seem more relevant to parents who are pushing their children to get jobs that will make them money after graduation. After reading an op-ed about the applicability of the liberal arts by one of my advisors, I had several discussions with various colleagues about how academic scholarship is evolving and how those of us who are students right now may need to secure popular and academic publications in the future in order to secure jobs.
Applying the theory and critical reading skills learned in liberal arts classes to popular culture artifacts would deepen the publics’ understanding of both what liberal arts majors do and the popular culture artifact, itself. All that said, I see no reason why the canon cannot be taught in conjunction with popular culture. Canonical works will always have a place in higher education because they inform the world we live simply by being historical artifacts, but that does not preclude the canon from getting bigger and more inclusive. Just in the last thirty to fifty years, the canon has been opened to include women and people of color in ways that would have made scholars of Dickens' day balk. In order to gain an understanding of how the world works, students do not just have to read Shakespeare and Austen; they can critique how satirical news shows are changing the landscape of what we consider news media, or they can consider how Empire or Blackish might be good or bad for African-American and black representation in America.