Exploring Politics and Government With Popular Culture: Justifications, Methods, Potentials, and Challenges in Introductory Political Science Courses

Abstract

For an introductory-level course (Politics and Government) mostly composed of nonpolitical science majors, I use a combination of nontraditional texts, including novels and films, along with primary documents. This article briefly justifies the value of nontraditional texts for exploring politics and government. It then sketches out the nontraditional texts used in the course and how they relate to politics and government. I also describe some methods I use in combining nontraditional texts with primary documents to highlight and explore important concepts and present-day political problems relevant for an introductory-level politics and government class. I close with a brief discussion of two problems I have encountered in employing such an approach. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of the Journal of Political Science Education for the following free supplemental resource(s): Tables 1 and 2, containing examples of relevant nontraditional texts and the political issues associated with them.]