Jersey shore arrives in academia discuss degree in liberal arts

‘Jersey Shore’ Arrives in Academia. Discuss. By JON CARAMANICA October 30, 2011 CHICAGO — When Deena Cortese was added to the cast of “Jersey Shore” in Season 3, she was nervous that she wouldn’t be welcome, that she wouldn’t be able to forge a place for herself in a group with well-established social dynamics. For one group of people, at least, Ms. Cortese is no footnote. At the UChicago Conference on Jersey Shore Studies here on Friday, she popped up frequently as a subject of academic discussion, particularly for an episode in which she thwarted the Situation’s attempt to bring home twins by swiping one for herself. In the process she became a trickster figure, upending the show’s heteronormativity and its power dynamics. Had this series of events unfolded in, say, a Victorian novel or a Godard film, it would have already been analyzed by generations of scholars. But this gathering, taking place a few days after the conclusion of the fourth season of “Jersey Shore,” may represent the quickest turnaround between the debut of a cultural event (December 2009) and a full conference devoted to it. Thank the rapid expansion of cultural studies in the academy over the past 15 years. The event, attended by perhaps a few hundred people over the course of the day, was split into four sessions, with multiple presentations in each, and spread out over the first floor of the University of Chicago’s Ida Noyes Hall. Upstairs in the same building you could attend a conference on “Ethics and the Place of Philosophy: The Legacy of Bernard Williams’s Critique,” a similar event with less tanning. The “Jersey Shore” conference was organized by David Showalter, a supremely self-possessed senior who secured financing for the conference outside the aegis of any particular academic department. (Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com …