Borders downsizing or, pop culture and its efficacy

Today I was in Borders hoping to find some ancillary material for an upcoming presentation on Hegel's master-slave dialectic in Phenomenology of Spirit.

After spending some time perusing other sections in my typical dilatory tangents in bookstores, I finally asked a sales associate "where is your philosophy section, namely covering the German Idealists (well I did not say the latter, but it would have been funny)?" She gave me a quizzical look and said, "we have a very small philosophy section"- sure enough small translated into a 4 foot by 7 foot rectangle beset on all sides by religion, sorcery, and astrology. Wow, hopefully locative context is not making a statement on the merit of the discipline!

Well I find some Kant, namely his most famous "Critiques," but no Hegel! Turns out that aside from some seminal works form Kant, Descartes, and Socrates there is nothing in this section but an amalgam of pop culture "x TV show and philosophy" books. I find "Star Wars and Philosophy," "Dune and Philosophy," and, my favorite (by that I mean least) "The Philosophy of Lost." I can't believe that a massive bookstore chain lacks stalwarts in the Philosophical field like Hegel, Kierkegaard (perhaps in religion?), or even (what I figured) iconoclast "rebel" philosophers like Nietzsche. Should I be worried that pop culture is slowly supplanting "high" literature and culture?

I need to step back for a minute and say what I should have prefaced this blog with: In my intro to grad studies course, we are examining the Canon (accepted list of literary works deemed "worth" teaching and "important") and how we select it. Often, the argument arises that we need to modernize the canon in order to engage increasingly disinterested students. Essentially, that it's the quality of the arguments that matter, not the topics.

I believe that we should modernize the canon and allow relevant conversation on modern issues, even celebrities and bands, if they result in good arguments. These should be ancillary discussions, however, and thus commensurate to their position among the classics. If "Harry Potter" is being taught exclusively instead of the Iliad, we are starting to have a problem. There is a certain amount of "mental rigor" that must be experienced in order to form us into a more empathetic, intelligent, and introspective being. Slugging through a "good" classic like "The Canterbury Tales" or "Beowulf," or even Book I (no I wouldn't do that to my students) of the "Faerie Queene," gives one an appreciation for historical culture and allows us to locate ourselves in our own time and culture. I believe in tough literature tempered with pop-culture to "keep it real," for a more holistic experience of the canon. What do you think?