Forager responded to a response to a response to a response to a post he wrote on the utility of discussing popular arts through an academic framework. I think he makes a fine point about a certain amount of groundwork needing to be laid before undergraduates will actually get anything out of a course on, say, Marvel Comics. When I was at Yale I spent my freshman year taking Directed Studies–three year-long parallel courses in history, philosophy and literature. It was a Western Canon kinda deal, and it ensured that during my later college years, when I was writing papers comparing Deliverance and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I had an intellectual leg to stand on.
