A student passed along this old piece from The Onion. I guess the upshot is that getting students to connect social theory to everyday issues is out there in the zeitgeist, which is a good thing. Parody from The Onion, however, less so. There’s even a nice echo of what I have to write in the margins every week:
Basile, who has not yet decided on a grade for Hoyer’s paper, said he encourages “thinking beyond the textbook” and has no problem with students expanding an assignment to incorporate non-traditional subjects like punk rock. He noted, however, that he “would ideally like to see at least a 50/50 ratio.”
“Look here on page 6. This long section on the anti-societal statements punks made by wearing torn clothing and dyed hair is an obvious place to work in something about Durkheim’s distinction between societies maintaining mechanical versus organic solidarity,” Basile said. “But instead, he just keeps hammering home the same point about Malcolm McClaren’s ‘Sex’ shop.”
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