The person looking into PAPER CHASE might try Arthur Asa Berger's
SIGNS IN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE (1989)?The last chapter of this book does
a semiotic reading of the film and TV show which might work well
with beginning undergraduates.  The book as a whole is introductory
with an emphasis on liberal politics, basic semiotics, and neo-Freudian
dabblings.  Still, it teaches well.
 
Bill Covey
Purdue University
[log in to unmask]