The "academic study" of pop culture

Right now I'm taking English 495, which is the senior capstone course for English majors. My professor, Dr. Dennis Cutchins, is hilarious and we have some crazy interesting discussions in that class--one of the perks of discussing books!

Anyhow, Dr. Cutchins recently took part in the National PCA/ACA (Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association) Conference in San Francisco last week. Basically, it's a conference for people who do academic studies relating to pop culture.... and the conference sounded pretty hilarious/entertaining/amazing.

I guess I've kind of thought of myself as "above" pop culture to a certain degree and have taken pride in this, but in reading the topics for the papers that were presented at the conference, I realized that I'm as much a sucker (maybe) as the next guy... even if I don't listen to Kiss FM or watch E!. There's something about pop culture that just draws you in, but more than a little makes me sick... it's like overdosing on cotton candy or something.

I realized, though, that there is a lot more to "culture" than stuff you see in Seventeen magazine or in movies. Popular culture encapsulates trends, societal attitudes, literature, film, and tons more... all of stuff that most of us find interesting. But, there is definitely still a lot of fluff. The cool thing about looking at pop culture from an academic standpoint, though, is that you can enjoy examining the trends and still feel smart, ha. Or at least that's what seems to be the draw to me.

I'm not sure if I could find sustained fulfillment in "studying" pop culture (I don't think many people actually dedicate their entire careers to it) but I must say, I think attending this conference would be REALLY interesting! Take a look at some of the paper topics and you'll see why. (Scroll down to about page 65)...

Where else could you sit in on discussions/presentations like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Hidden Agenda? Roundtable Discussion" or “Small Dog, Big Class: Toy Dogs as Cultural Capital” or “The Death of Captain America: Mythic Revisionism, Marvel’s ‘Civil War,’ and the War on Terror” or “Dressed to Kilt: The Shrek Tartan and the Discourse of Highlandism”? And the scarier question: would you even want to sit in on these? (Probably most of us would like to, if just for a chuckle.)

Haha. Obviously, I picked some of the more random examples, but seriously, who wouldn't love listening to someone with a PhD talk about this stuff? I think it'd be pretty interesting. It's like the educated version of E!News :-)

I'm thinking perhaps someday I might need to go, just for the experience. Who knows, maybe I can whip up a paper on "Existentialist Themes in 'The Office'" or something! Anyone want to come? :-)