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Originally Posted by Latinandgreek
I worked as a book buyer for a university book store in Canada. Harry Potter and the Twilight novels were on course syllabi, as was The Hunger Games. I even recall seeing Nora Roberts on an old syllabus. I believe that Twilight and The Hunger Games were being used in a third year english course on YA sci-fi and fantasy.
I do think that anything can legitimately find a place in onto a university or college course; after all, appraising the 'value' of a book is subjective.
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I don't particularly object to this either, as long as they are used in appropriate courses for people in the major, and not as general ed requirements.
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I do think, however, that classical learning has been much too marginalized lately in North America. Having completed university degrees in Canada and Europe I find that I much prefer the European approach to higher education. While I had much less freedom in my course choices in Europe, all of the students who had completed the same degree that I did (classical philology) at my university had, at least in theory, covered 90% of the same material I did in my classes, and all major authors were covered.
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Where did you study? It doesn't make sense to talk about the "European" approach to higher education, since the approach in the UK (3 years to a BA and fairly regimented) and the approach in, say, Germany (6+ years, very few requirements) are *vastly* different.
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I do feel like my North American degree (from the University of Toronto) left me with large gaps in my knowledge that I had to make up for in graduate school, and never could quite make up for.
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