the first jersey shore conference

It had to come sooner or later. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that there will be a conference dedicated to the Jersey Shore television show. The conference organizer, Andrew Ross, is a leading scholar of popular culture and the conference will be held at his home institution, New York University. Why a conference on this controversial reality show? Ross claims that “the transformation of Italian-American subjectivity into a tradable commodity is the next step in the evolution of so-called ‘reality tv.’ The saturation of American media with the inimitable musk of juiced up gym rats  has injected a little J-WOWW into all out water cooler conversation. There is now a little Snooki inside all of us. We must understand her.”

Of course, the conference will cover all the Jersey Shore basics. Literary critics discuss the new book deal for Ronnie and J-WOWW , sociologists talk about Paulie D’s impact on American courtship rituals, and education scholars describe Snooki’s influence on academic race relations. But my money is on the panel dedicated to a new subfield of pop culture studies, “Situationology.” Check out theses abstracts by leading scholars:

• From Guy Debord to Mike Sorrentino: The MTV Situationist by McKenzie Wark. Abstract: Guy Debord envisioned the urban space as something handled and reconstructed by a liberatory avant-garde. This paper discusses how “The Situation” is a true Situationist, brinigng Debord’s project into the post-modern present. By wandering Seaside Heights in search of the sweet love, the Jersey Shore cast, and the Situation in particular, transforms the urban space into an abstract game of networked mating opportunities, each free of bourgieois constraints.
• Situational Ethics: Would you jump on the grenade? by Derek Parfit. Abstract: We can, I think, describe situations where we should hook up. But are there situations where it is impossible to say if we should hook up? My targets are two. First, he who wishes to hook up but is hindered by the third wheel. Second, he who wishes to hook up but can only do so with the third wheel. Some people say they are different, but they are not.

How they got such smart people to write on such a dumb topic is beyond me.