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Study Guide for Final

1. What is Cantor's method and what is his purpose?

2. How did the Cold War and the space race affect American attitudes about the rest of the world? How did the end of the Cold War and the routinization of space technology, as well as Vietnam and Watergate, change American attitudes?

3. What does the situation on "Gilligan's Island" represent according to Cantor? What American "types" do the various characters represent?

4. What historical process is Cantor tracing through each of the four TV shows he analyzes? (i.e., in general, what point in the globalization process does each show represent?)

5. What American attitudes toward domestic politics and the rest of the planet does Star Trek depict?

6. What stance does each show take toward religious/mythological themes? Do the differences reveal changing American attitudes about the spiritual dimension of life?

7. Why does Cantor use the title "Simpsons Agonistes?"

8. Explain the theme of the death of tragedy/heroism that Cantor brings out in the Star Trek and Simpsons chapters. How is tragedy reborn with The X-Files?

9. How does The Simpsons deal with "foreign influences" in Springfield? Is Springfield a good example of the type of globalization experienced in America today?

10. Explain Cantor's point that globalization has become primarily economic and not ideological by the time we get to The Simpsons.

11. What is the attitude toward the American government and the "American way" (ideology) on the X-Files?

12. How are immigrants depicted on The X-Files and how does Cantor link that depiction up with the show's larger theme of alien interference?

13. What does Cantor mean by "mainstreaming paranoia?"

14. Explain how The X-Files treats information technology as a two edged sword and juxtaposes print communication with oral and electronic communication.

15. Compare and contrast the treatment of family in The Simpsons and The X-Files, especially as Cantor deals with them in his conclusion.

16. What might communitarians have to say about the process of globalization Cantor describes in "Gilligan Unbound?"