Friday’s UChicago Conference on “Jersey Shore” Studies brought academics together to discuss, among other things, “Guido” culture, Marxism, and labor economics.
For coverage of the conference as a whole, see “Beside Plato and Foucault, “Jersey” treads on foreign shores.”
For an interview with conference organizer and fourth-year David Showalter conducted in May, see “Uncommon Interview: David Showalter.”
For coverage of select talks, see below:
“The Monetization of Being: Reputational Labor, Brand, Culture, and Why “Jersey Shore” Does and Does Not Matter”—Professor Alison Hearn of the University of Western Ontario examined “Jersey Shore’s” contributions to the culture of branding from various perspectives in her keynote.
“Guido Cultural Signfiers”—“Homecoming” was the operative word at one panel, where University students outlined the characteristics of the American guido and traced the term’s lineage back through Italian culture.
“Labor and Economics”—A Marxist analysis was in play at one of the conference’s talks, where a joint panel of students from the U of C and the University of Western Ontario offered a backdoor look at labor relations on set and the show’s topsy-turvey balance of labor-power.
