FACT: The ongoing quality of popular culture ruins perfectly fine lectures.

(If you watch House but didn't watch it last night stop reading.)

It should come as no surprise that my favorite prepackaged lecture focuses on the importance of historical context to rhetorical analysis.  What I try to do is throw so much context at them that by the end of class they feel alienated from their own cultural moment.  That way when they discuss the context of these works they're forced to sift through quite a bit of information and deem what bits of it are relevant to the rhetorical situation.  It usually goes something like this:

Only today as soon as I mentioned House the following ensued:

STUDENT #1: KUTNER!

HALF THE CLASS: What about Kutner?

STUDENT #2: Don't spoil it!

HALF THE CLASS: What is there to spoil about Kutner?

SEK: There will be no spoilers in this classroom!

STUDENT #1: But you just told us Superman saves everybody on the plane.

SEK: Superman saving everyone isn't a spoiler.  That's what has to happen.  (pauses a beat to let the students settle)

HALF THE CLASS: Seriously you guys did something happen to Kutner?

Normally I wouldn't comment on this, but the outpouring of affection my ninety-five percent minority class had for Kal Penn's character makes me think the rationale behind suiciding Kutner might be more compelling than it first sounds. 

Comments

[todd.]

I opened this just as Ruth was firing up the DVR to watch last night's House. Thanks for the warning at the top. Also: KUTNER!

[StevenAttewell]

Now I'm really curious: is the rhetorical link being drawn that Bruce Wayne, FDR, and T.R are all crusading elites struggling with the crisis of industrial urbanism? If so, I think T.R fits a lot better than FDR, given T.R's obsession with physical self-improvement, standing up to bullies, and his time as a Police Commissioner.

[SEK]

KUTNER! indeed, Todd, KUNTER! indeed.

is the rhetorical link being drawn that Bruce Wayne, FDR, and T.R are all crusading elites struggling with the crisis of industrial urbanism? If so, I think T.R fits a lot better than FDR, given T.R's obsession with physical self-improvement, standing up to bullies, and his time as a Police Commissioner.

I start off by asking "Why did people during the Great Depression want to read about a wealthy socialite who spent his evenings beating up poor people?" The class mumbles mumbles, and I start to talk about the Great Depression, the image of FDR, then we talk about effete liberal moneybags, which I counter with "But who was FDR related to?" Then I talk about Teddy and the cult of manly masculinity, &c. Shorter version of that:

I proffer a reading of the Batman's popularity as an FDR figure, because poor people wanted to believe that wealthy socialites didn't spend their evenings pointlessly Paris-Hiltoning around town or Scrooge-McDucking in their vaults but secretly did all they could to help poor people. (Short of giving them money, that is, because that would be un-American.)

[Rich Puchalsky]

Spoilers -- I was almost sure that Taub had done away with Kutner -- you know, he visits him at home to get the who-figured-out-the-rats story straight, Kutner tells him that House already knows, and Taub jealously decides that if Kutner is dead, House will have to keep Taub on because otherwise he'd be two people short. Not very in character for Taub, I know. The there's-no-explanation thing is unusual, for TV.