UD prof's books explores philosophical nuances of 'South Park'

Richard Hanley, associate professor of philosophy, celebrates the animated comedy’s capacity for confronting issues that make most viewers uncomfortable.
UD photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

South Park, the Emmy Award-winning animated television comedy created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone and seen on Comedy Central, has drawn the attention of Richard Hanley, University of Delaware associate professor of philosophy, whose latest book, South Park and Philosophy, celebrates the show's capacity for confronting issues that make most viewers uncomfortable.

“I chose South Park because there are not many shows on TV that are worth writing about,” Hanley said. “South Park is like the Simpsons, but with a lot less restrictions, and almost every episode pushes the envelope.”

South Park and Philosophy is part of the Popular Culture and Philosophy series published by Open Court. The series' diverse list of subjects range from The Sopranos and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to pop icons such as the Beatles, James Bond series and the movies of suspense master Alfred Hitchcock.

For Hanley, the most valuable asset the show possesses is its potential for controversy and its refusal to settle for standard answers on difficult and often perplexing issues.

Issues of applied ethics, Hanley said, include human stem-cell research, euthanasia, treatment of drugs in sports, religion and blasphemy, the theory of evolution in school, tolerance, the environment, gay marriage and drugs in general.

The book is laid out in five sections including, “Religion and Other Disabilities,” “Politics and Other Sacred Cows,” “Morality and Other Urges,” “Science, Logic and Other Really, Really Clever Stuff” and “Humor and other Insertable Devices.”

Of the book's 22 chapters, 14 were written by Hanley. The remaining eight chapters feature contributions by UD alums Sophia Bishop and Tom Way, an assistant professor of computing sciences at Villanova University, plus three other writers, including Randall E. Auxier.

Hanley, who earned his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Maryland in College Park, is the author of The Metaphysics of Star Trek (1997), published in paperback as Is Data Human? (1998). He also has written several articles, including “Never the Twain Shall Meet: Reflections on the First Matrix,” (Official Warner Brothers web site version, 2002), “Send in the Clones,” in Star Wars and Philosophy (2004, edited by Kevin Decker and Jason Eberl) and the soon to be released “Where is the Twilight Zone?” in The Twilight Zone and Philosophy (2007), edited by Lester Hunt and Noel Carroll.

Media contact: Martin Mbugua, (302) 831-8749, [mbugua@udel.edu]
April 24, 2007