{"id":589,"date":"2016-02-17T19:56:37","date_gmt":"2016-02-18T00:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/02\/17\/2988\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T13:59:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T18:59:12","slug":"2988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2988\/","title":{"rendered":"MayEx focus: The world according to Bart, Homer, Marge, Lisa and Maggie"},"content":{"rendered":"

May 24, 2012<\/p>\n

By Erikah Haavie, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The irrepressible Bart Simpson<\/p><\/div>\n

Health sciences major Caitlin Shelton is getting to know a new family as part of her May Experience course: Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie.<\/p>\n

Before enrolling in \u201cSimpsonology\u201d this month, the Furman junior had never before seen an episode of the animated television show featuring the legendary Simpson family from Springfield. Now, she\u2019s watching up to three episodes per class \u2014 and loving it.<\/p>\n

But Carmel Price\u2019s sociology class is not just about watching cartoons. The long-running Simpsons series, which debuted more than 20 years ago, is a social and cultural phenomenon that also provides a valuable tool for analyzing sociological concepts, says Price, an Associated Colleges of the South postdoctoral fellow.<\/p>\n

The three-week course is offering 18 students the opportunity to take an in-depth look at current issues in education, politics, the environment, gender, marriage, immigration and religion, not only through the lens of the show, but through readings and other activities created by the students themselves.<\/p>\n

Students met with Price on the first day of class to build the course syllabus, which includes a final week of classes with three-hour lessons taught entirely by small groups of students on topics ranging from obesity to gun violence.<\/p>\n

The student-led, hands-on activities have prompted lively discussions and powerful lessons on social issues. \u201cThe students have blown me away,\u201d Price says.<\/p>\n

Senior Patrick Starr is part of a group that is using two of the series\u2019 episodes, \u201cLisa the treehugger\u201d and \u201cTwo cars in every garage, three eyes on every fish,\u201d as catalysts for discussions of environmental issues.<\/p>\n

While Starr has been a long-time Simpsons fan, \u201cSimpsonology\u201d is his first sociology course. \u201cIt\u2019s opened my eyes,\u201d he says, adding it\u2019s as if the class has placed \u201ca big magnifying glass\u201d on the show.<\/p>\n

The course has encouraged him to think critically about the social commentary and sociological issues raised in each episode. \u201cIt\u2019s been an entertaining and invigorating educational experience,\u201d Starr says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 24, 2012<\/p>\n

By Erikah Haavie, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n

Before enrolling in the May Experience \u201cSimpsonology\u201d course this month, Furman junior Caitlin Shelton had never before seen an episode of the animated television show featuring the legendary Simpson family from Springfield. Now, she\u2019s watching up to three episodes per class \u2014 and loving it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,22,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-sociology","category-study-away-and-international-education"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}