Seinfeld ran for nine seasons on NBC and became famous as a “show about nothing.” Basically, the show allows viewers to follow the antics of Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer as they move through their daily lives, often encountering interesting people or dealing with special circumstances. It is the simplicity of Seinfeld that makes it so appropriate for use in economics courses. Using these clips (as well as clips from other television shows or movies) makes economic concepts come alive, making them more real for students. Ultimately, students will start seeing economics everywhere – in other TV shows, in popular music, and most importantly, in their own lives.

At the risk of being called a penis-bashing dog-faced psycho feminazi* again, I’m going to talk about gender today! (Woo! Gender!) More precisely, I’m going to show off this crazy infographic I made with Carlos A. Hann Commander. Think of this piece as a visual aid for my strong female character article, my piece about likability in fiction, Belinkie’s awesome piece about Chris Nolan’s women, or any of the other gender-related articles on this site. Better yet, you can use this graphic the next time you write your own original female character and wonder if she’s a cliché or not. I know how hard writing original characters can be, and I hope this flowchart can help you out.

avid Simon sees things most of us overlook. Perhaps he learned to look at the world differently, some might say more pessimistically, while a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Then he turned to writing books and later television dramas portraying life on our nation’s streets. Simon’s success in dramatic writing is underscored by his 12 years working the city desk for the Sun where he learned to distinguish between the American Dream and the American Reality.

In the last decade, David Simon’s work has aimed at telling his fellow citizens that what they see on the news is often, perhaps at times even intentionally, an illusion. Simon’s dramatic series ( Homicide: Life on the Street, HBO mini-series The Corner, and most recently the HBO television series The Wire ) reflect a nation at war with itself. The nation Simon portrays is infected with a drug culture it is unable to control and unwilling to tolerate. Just as in the real America, the characters in his immensely successful HBO series The Wire, openly game the system and juke the stats to make whatever it is they are doing seem right, or successful, or somehow normal.

In thirty-eight years, The Price is Right never had a contestant guess the exact value of prizes in the Showcase showdown. Until Terry Kniess outsmarted everyone — and changed everything.