Oh, Intersession.
Many students use these few weeks of crash courses to play catch-up on classes not available during the regular semester or to replace a bad grade from an earlier course. And while offering non-traditional classes during this time is nothing new, OU is doing something a little different this year by allowing students to take a class on the topic of “Twilight,” the teenage vampire love fest and melodrama we all know and love.
“Twilight and Youth Culture” earns brief credibility by explaining that it will examine all aspects of the “Twilight” phenomenon and how it’s affecting our society. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years, it’s no surprise this course filled up fast. But seriously OU, enough is enough. Most students have encountered the books, movies or memorabilia at some point in their lives and, therefore, view the course as an easy “A”. At what price does this “guaranteed A” come though? First and foremost, there’s no such thing as guaranteed grades in college. Second, the credit is offered through the University College so, unless you’re a freshman, it really doesn’t benefit your degree much. Third, you’re paying money to do what anyone could given enough free time.
In its defense, many other academic institutions have deemed “Twilight” worthy enough to be discussed in the classroom. In fact, the past few years have showed schools are trying to reflect society’s fascination with pop culture fads in intelligent and more creative ways. However, not often does glorification by youth and the media make a trend substantial enough to support intellectual conversation and thought.
Stephanie Meyer’s series is by no means a classic, but the entertainment value is high. From the realism of first-love angst to the various mystical adventures, the books are captivating. However, the storyline is as vague and wooden as a majority of its Hollywood counterparts and really doesn’t have enough literary or psychological depth to have an educational influence.
Although this may seem a bit harsh, I personally am a big fan of “Twilight.” But I’m not so consumed by yet another pop culture phase to realize that sometimes a stupid class really is just that. While it may be relevant for now, nothing someone learns about “Twilight” will truly help those enrolled after the craze has fizzled out and died. Is “Twilight” fun? Sure. Does it have the influence to be considered legitimate academic subject matter? Absolutely not. Therefore, I think it safe to say that unless it’s being put up for debate in literature courses, or picked apart clip-by-clip by film and video studies majors, “Twilight” is best left to entertain and dazzle fans outside of the classroom.
Lauren Abram is a broadcast journalism senior.
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LauraGibbs 2 years ago
DylanC94, I spend about 15 minutes a day reading the Daily, and I take a few minutes to write a comment when an article is especially bad. When I read an article that is especially good, I'll be sure to post a comment then too. As for what I do with the rest of my personal life or professional life in the remaining 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day, your (wrong) assumptions about that are the epitome of being off-topic.
terri 2 years ago
Lauren, thanks. It is time we blew the lid off some of the crap that passes for educational material. HOPEFULLY a journalism senior would have enough educational experience to be able to recognize and evaluate a major feature of youth culture, including the fairy-tale throwbacks and the misogyny. A freshman might need a class like that, but hopefully not a senior...although I know there are plenty of seniors who need all the help they can get, including vapid classes and easy A's, in order to graduate. But to which group do we concede the grounds of academic and intellectual integrity - the ones who need that kind of help, or the ones who don't?
LauraGibbs 2 years ago
I don't understand: how does Lauren know that this class is "stupid" and how does Terri know that it is "crap"...? To evaluate a course, you would need to see the syllabus, talk to the instructor, talk to the students, attend at least a few class meetings, etc. One of the biggest problems at the university is that there is no systematic evaluation of courses for quality of content or quality of instruction - and it seems that this particular course is being dismissed purely on the basis of the title of the course, without any direct knowledge at all of the course's contents or of the instructor's methods. The title of a course provides no real grounds for evaluation. You can't just a book by its cover, and you can't judge a course by its title.
u2dy 2 years ago
I think you're missing something, Lauren: the "and Youth Culture" part of the course title.
Granted, I'm not enrolled in the course, and I really do not know very much about it. But I really doubt the objective of the course is offer much praise to Meyers's texts. You state that trends need to be "substantial" in order to "support intellectual conversation." I'm not really sure what this means, but I do think that almost anything in pop-culture can support culturally-relevant discourse. Twilight is wildly popular, and thus using the books as the centerpiece of a cultural-studies course is really not that much of a stretch. In fact, it's a really good idea (if the course's instructor approaches everything correctly).
And I like what eightbitgirl said: any discussion about Twilight should consider the books' patriarchal orderings and their implications.
eightbitgirl 2 years ago
I would love to see a Women's Studies course pick this misogynistic garbage apart for what it really is, though.
DylanC94 2 years ago
Laura Gibbs, once again, you bitch and moan and when you get done, you bitch and moan some more. I'm not a fan of The Daily either, but from the comments you've posted week after week, I'm convinced you have nothing better to do with your life than to just put a college rag down day after day.
Get a life! I've seen your comments say things like, "I've done my own investigative journalism" and "I can do this much better" and "I fear for the future of journalism" makes me think that (1) you madame are an idiot, (2) you have no life, (3) you work somewhere on campus either in Gaylord or Evans Hall and this is your way of trying to be noticed from your lousy desk job and your miserable quiet life and (4) you continuously say "I can do better"... WELL, GET UP OFF YOUR ASS AND GO TO THE DAILY AND WORK THERE AND PUT OUT BETTER CONTENT!
You are part of the problem, not the solution! Either contribute to the conversation of the topic at hand or shut up! You are the worst online troll ever! At least other trolls have the decency to stay on topic! Tell your 10 cats and your microwave TV dinners I said hello.
LauraGibbs 2 years ago
Once again, the Daily has wasted time and space on an opinion article that is vapid and casual, not based on anything other than personal whimsy. Apparently the author of this editorial has not even bothered to obtain a copy of the syllabus for the class to find out what the goals of the course are. Instead, the author is recklessly passing judgment on a course without knowing anything about the course other than its title. Given that the author of this editorial is a senior majoring in journalism, that does not bode well for the future of journalism in this country. Do seniors majoring in journalism learn anything about how to do background and research? May Intersession is already underway, which means that the faculty member teaching the course would probably be available for comment, but did the author of this opinion piece contact the instructor? Apparently not; the article does not even tell us who the instructor is or what that person's qualifications might be. Without any information about the class beyond what appears in the OU Intersession course listing, the author has no way of knowing what is happening in that class - but, as usual, ignorance of the topic seems to be no obstacle to a Daily Opinon writer expressing their opinion with all the bluster they can muster.
Instead of discussing specifically and in detail the question of just what cultural phenomena are, or perhaps are not, legitimate subjects for college-level courses, the author of the editorial drags in some red herring about the course being an easy A. Why would she expect a correlation between the content of the class and the kind of grade people might receive? In order to speculate about grades, you'd need to know things like the reading load required in the class, the types of assignments that students will complete, the instructor's grading policy, and so on. Given that the author of the editorial hasn't apparently so much as seen a copy of the syllabus, speculating about grades is completely groundless.
Dismissing a class as "stupid" (which is what the author of the editorial does here) without having any detailed knowledge of the class is unwarranted, and makes this opinion piece a waste of any reader's time. After such a dismal series of ill-informed but oh-so-highly opinionated opinion pieces published in the Daily during the regular academic year, I thought perhaps the Daily might prove less of a time-wasting experience during the summer. If today's opinion piece is any indication, however, the opinion pages of the Daily during the summer will be just as self-important and uninformative as they were during the academic year, alas.
timbap_ajs 1 year, 10 months ago
It is a little ridiculous that schools are creating courses that are JUST about Twilight and teen love novels. It'd make much more sense to, if the school must include teen love novels, compare modern novels to classic novels, assign literary analysis essays that make the students think about how books show how times have and haven't changed over the years, anything to make them really think and earn their grade...Even though it would be cool to have a class on Twilight (from one 'twiheart' to another!) -timbap_ajs