25.5.11

Di che college sei?

In America il college ha un ruolo importante nel definire l'identità sociale. Lo stesso avviene in letteratura, dove il college è spesso usato per definire la personalità dei personaggi. Daniel de Vise del Washington Post traccia una mappa interessante degli stereotipi umani legati ai college: "Real colleges pop up all over our fictional landscapes, their names invoked to breathe life and depth into characters. The universities of Minnesota and Virginia serve as backdrops in Freedom, Jonathan Franzen's celebrated novel. The Simpsons caricatured the Seven Sisters in an episode touching on the collegiate aspirations of bookish daughter Lisa. ("Come to Radcliffe and meet Harvard men," they beckon. "Or come to Wellesley and marry them.") And the Oscar-winning film The Social Network essentially stars Harvard University ... A citation in fiction means an institution's brand is sufficiently familiar to help define a fictional character: Princeton preppy. Penn State party boy. MIT brainiac. Harvard kingmaker. Berkeley radical. Notre Dame jock". wp.

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