Book Description
The Simpsons is one of the most literary and intelligent comedies on television today-fertile ground for questions such as: Does Nietzsche justify Bart's bad behavior? Is hypocrisy always unethical? What is Lisa's conception of the Good? From the editor of the widely-praised Seinfeld and Philosophy, The Simpsons and Philosophy is an insightful and humorous look at the philosophical tenets of America's favorite animated family that will delight Simpsons fans and philosophy aficionados alike.

Twenty-one philosophers and academics discuss and debate the absurd, hyper-ironic, strangely familiar world that is Springfield, the town without a state. In exploring the thought of key philosophers including Aristotle, Marx, Camus, Sartre, Heidegger, and Kant through episode plots and the characters' antics, the contributors tackle issues like irony and the meaning of life, American anti-intellectualism, and existential rebellion. The volume also includes an episode guide and a chronology of philosophers which lists the names and dates of the major thinkers in the history of philosophy, accompanied by a representative quote from each.

time for a book ring! for anyone that doesn't know the drill: please journal the book when you receive it, again when you are done with your thoughts, and one last time to indicate you are sending it on it's way. please get delivery confirmation and make a note of the # in your last entry. one last thing- try to read it in a reasonable amount of time....let's say a month?
here are the participants:

Megi53-VA (anywhere)
teenage-faerie-TN
Maddog1404-GA
sweetpea0678-FL
glitterfaerie80-FL
labmomnm-NM (anywhere)
silverstarry-CA
tnkbl-CA
caligula03-CA (anywhere)
nwpassage-BC
PrincessJCM-Ireland
taniazed-OZ

off today to Megi53- enjoy!

Arrived this afternoon. Looks like it will be good -- section headings like "Aristotle's Character Types" intrigue me.

Hmmm... well... this book was tremendously ... PHILOSOPHICAL. I loved it, but I had been expecting a wacky joke book and instead it was serious, profound, erudite, all those collegiate words.

I took longer than I expected to read it, too, because I decided as I read to watch (for a second time) all the Simpsons episodes the authors analyzed.

On the back cover the blurb states: "...this book actually contains the worst philosophy essay ever." The actual bad essay was never named, as far as I could tell, but I hereby nominate the last essay in the book: "What Bart Calls Thinking", which purports to compare and contrast Schopenhauer, Frege, and Heidegger. Something about whether thoughts are real or the world is real, and personifying vs. personalizing. Made my head spin.

My favorite essay was "The Function of Fiction". Not only was McMahon's writing easy to follow; she had some fascinating theories about reading and its effects on people.

Useful sections at the end listed Simpsons episodes by season, philosophers in chronological order and an idea from each, and funny short biographies of this book's authors.

On the way to teenage-faerie -- mailing today.

this looks like an interesting book! cant wait to read it. i have a few other bookrings i need to finish up first though!

this book was very interesting! it made me feel smarter being such a huge simpsons fan.

sorry to be stalling this but i'm having trouble getting an address! maddog1404 hasnt responded so i PMd sweetpea0678 and am awaiting a response....

RELEASE NOTES:

sent off to sweetpea0678!

Book is here, I am reading the journal entries and I thought it was going to be a funny book, but looks like its a serious book. Will give it a try anyway since its here. My boyfriend may want to give it a try. Thanks for sharing.

I could not get into this book, maybe too smart for me. LOL My boyfriend read most of it and enjoyed it.

Thanks for sharing.

I've been PMing for a couple weeks glitterfaerie80 but never heard back. Got labmomnms address and will send on its way.

RELEASE NOTES:

sent off to labmomnm

Arrived in the mail - currently hanging out on Mt. TBR (well, it is only a hill right now)

7 May '05 - Okely-dokely....I really liked parts of this book, but thought that some of the analyses were a bit far-fetched. One essay was basically critical of the series for not having a "message"....*sheesh*...it is a regular old TV show! Not an "ABC After School Special" trying to teach kids some life lesson! (I'm so tempted to add "Don't have a cow, man!". Hmmm, I just did.) I could rant for a while about this, but it is basically my "issue" with literary/artistic criticism in general. Still, other essays were quite thought-provoking, to the point that I'm having trouble watching "The Simpsons" because I keep looking for evidence either in support of or to refute the authors. I'm hoping this effect will wear off quickly! Now I also want to read the "Seinfeld" version of this, and I'm soooooo hoping for a "South Park" edition!

14 May '05 - mailed to silverstarry

Just received this in the mail today - can't wait to read it!

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, I always appreciate when seemingly throwaway pop culture is shown to be intelligent as well as relevant. Although I like the premise behind this book, the reality of it doesn't quite live up to the potential. Some of the authors seem like they are bending over backwards to pat themselves on the back. They never come right out and say, "Oh, I'm so smart!" but I did get that Mr. Burns-esque vibe from them. I found some of the parenthetical/footnoted refutations to be a bit much as well.

Another thing that I found annoying was that given the 265 episodes that had aired when the book was published, many of the essays referenced the same 5-10 episodes. I am not a totally obsessive fan of the Simpsons, so I don't remember every single episode off the top of my head, but it seems misrepresentative of the authors to concentrate on the same episodes throughout the book - are they trying to tell us that less than 4% of the episodes are worth their scrutiny? I realize that each essay is written by a different author, so the possiblity for overlap is there, but the editors could have pointed out to the authors, "You know, three other people already analyzed this particular episode. Is there another one that might fit your argument?"

Overall, I found this book to be interesting but it seemed like they were stretching at some points. As labmomnm pointed out, sometimes a tree is just a tree.

Thanks so much to weeblet for sharing this book with us!

Mailed to tnkbl today:

DC# 0304 1070 0002 4158 9301

It's here! I just finished a book yesterday, so I'm going to start on it right away. Looks really interesting!

I was very excited about the idea of this book, and many parts were as insighful and interesting as I had hoped. There were some chapters, though, that I thought were more about the author's own philosophical ego than about the Simpsons.

But that said, many of the sections made me think about the Simpsons and my own life in new ways. My favorite section was the chapter about Mr. Burns and "this so-called Iced Cream." I really understood the arguments about pleasure and happiness and how it pertained to my own life. I also liked reading about the bigger picture of what values the Simpsons as a whole espoused. It was interesting to see varying viewpoints on the societal influence of the values portrayed in the show.

I'm putting this in the mail today to caligula03.

Book has arrived. Thank you.

Site seems to be severly broken at the moment. I'm not sure if these journal entries are being saved or not.

I really enjoyed these series of essays on philosphy with the Simpsons as the starting point. My favorite essay has to be the one comparing Nietze to Bart. I was actually laughing while reading the essay!

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailing to nwpassage.

Book arrived today, though a large corner of the packaging didn't. Crazy postal service! This is perfect timing, since I was just trying to decide what book to start next... so I will start reading this immediately.

Finished in the wee hours last night/this morning. As other reviewers have said, this book was much more serious then anticipated, and because of this took longer to read then I thought it would.

I really had to struggle to read this book. "Part I - The Characters" was OK, it didn't exactly pull me in, but it did seem a logical place for the book to start since it contained 5 essays, one examining each member of the Simpsons nuclear family. I liked the three essays on the Simpson women better than the ones on Homer & Bart.

"Part II - Simpsonian Themes" was awful until the last essay, "Simpsonian Sexual Politics", which came along just in time to keep me from abandoning the book. I was so glad I didn't though, because

"Part III - I Didn't Do It: Ethics and The Simpsons" was easily my favorite, I enjoyed all the essays in this section. The second essay in this section, "The Simpsons: Atomistic Politics and the Nuclear Family" was in my mind the high point of the book.

The first essay in "Part IV - The Simpsons and the Philosophers", "A (Karl, not Groucho) Marxist in Springfield" was OK, and then the book went seriously downhill again for the final two essays.

All in all, with the exception of Part III, the book just didn't seem to live up to its potential. Some of the writers didn't seem to keep their intended audience (intelligent lay people) in mind, and just happily talked over my head. I think this would be a very fun textbook for a philosophy class, but it was a little dry for leisure reading. But... I have to admit to being a little curious about another volume in this "Popular Culture and Philosophy" series: the Buffy the Vampire Slayer one! :)

I'm glad I got the chance to satisfy my curiousity & read this, thanks so much weeblet for including me in this ring! :) I have PrincessJCM's address & will have this in the mail Saturday, 20 August 2005.

This book took a couple of months to reach us. We were then away on an extended trip. My DH has finished reading the book and it's set to go on to the next reader. Sorry for the delay :-(

RELEASE NOTES:

Mailed to weeblet today :-)

it's home!! d'oh!
thanks everyone :)