Simpsons' Beloved Springfield

Karma Waltonen teaches professional writing, literature, popular culture (including The Simpsons), and stand-up comedy at the University of California, Davis. She is the president of the Margaret Atwood Society and edits Margaret Atwood Studies. Denise Du Vernay taught college courses in composition, literature, The Simpsons, speech, and the humanities for seventeen years. She is the treasurer and social media manager for the Margaret Atwood Society. She lives in Chicago, Illinois, where she works in Advancement for Loyola University Chicago.

• Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Putting the Spring in Springfield (Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay)The Simpsons Timeline (Forever Incomplete) (Karma Waltonen and Denise Du Vernay)This Town Is a Part of Them (and Us) All (Denise Du Vernay)15The Simpsons, Gender Roles and Witchcraft: The Witch in Modern Popular Culture (Sarah Antinora)“Owning Your Okayness”: The Simpsons as “Good Enough” delete delete Parents (Summer Block)Be Sharp: The Simpsons and Music (Durrell Bowman)RIP in Springfield: Rhetorics of Death (Jennifer Richardson Burg)The Grotesque and the Beautiful: The Bodies of Springfield (Brent Walter Cline and Matthew Nelson Hill)“Will you take us to Mt. Splashmore?”: Commercials and Consumerism (Brian N. Duchaney)“I’ll repress the rage I’m feeling!”: Food Politics (Timothy L. Glenn)This Is Not a Library! This Is Not a ­Kwik-E-Mart!: The Satire of Libraries, Librarians and Reference Desk ­Air-Hockey Tables (Casey D. Hoeve)Just a Little Kick in the Bum: The Simpsons vs. the Nations of the World (Travis Holland)“So you’re calling God a liar!”: An Unbiased Comparison of Science and Religion (Wm. Curtis Holtzen)“Animation is built on plagiarism”: The Simpsons and Hitchcock, Parody and Pastiche (Zachary Ingle)Is Yellow the New Green? The Banal Environmentalism of The Simpsons (David Krantz)Fear of a Yellow Planet: The ­Eight-Fingered, Cartoon Version of Anxiety (Seth Madej)In Search of Another Story: Satire and The Simpsons (Duncan Reyburn)“It’s not selling out; it’s ­co-branding!”: Watching and Consuming The Simpsons in a Digital Age (Tyler Shores)Aristotle in Springfield: On Friendship (Zachary Tavlin)Homer as Homework: The Simpsons in the College Classroom (Lisa Whalen)What We All Came Here to See—Sex (Karma Waltonen)About the ContributorsIndex

“The book provides a deeper reading of the show, discussing its music and film allusions and how it examines themes such as nationalism, gender roles, and environmentalism. ... This is a perfectly cromulent resource and a fun read. Simpsons fans will appreciate academics geeking out, and scholars will benefit from this embiggening of Simpson-ology.”—Library Journal