Seminar Outline / Proposal

While many of the suggested topics on the syllabus interested me, none seemed to really capture what intrigues me most about my own consumption: what is retained from my consumption. I try to be consistent in thinking of the outcomes of my consumptions, whether they are media, food, clothing, literature, whatever. When I am consuming something on television, for example, is this particular program bettering me as a person? Am I learning something from it? What are the benefits besides entertainment? Should something be required to surpass being simply entertainment, or tasty if it’s food, or expensive and popular if it’s clothing or other apparel? I find this idea legitimately fascinating and very hard to answer.

While I know that my current argument is yes, we should require our consumption to be healthful, enlightening, moral, and responsible. However, I know how difficult it is to keep my consumption within these guidelines, therefore I am excited in the idea of researching how many of these attributes are necessary and/or possible. While I worry that the premise itself may be too simple, I think the idea is an important one that often gets overlooked. I know many intelligent people that could care less about what (if anything) is retained from their media consumption, or the health issues involved with their food consumption, or the moral concerns that seem to accompany all of these matters. In this sense, I also must make sure to not broaden my scopes too far in fear of unsuccessfully breaking the surface of these issues’ structures, but I do believe I can touch upon the areas of each that I struggle with the most.