Call Me Elvis
Elvis Aaron Presley may not have graduated from high school, but the King has academia all shook up. One man is largely responsible for bringing him to colleges: Vernon Chad wick '75. An English professor at the University of Mississippi, Chadwick has codirected the first-ever academic conference on Presley. "In Search of Elvis: The International Conference on Elvis Presley" took place at Ole Miss in August and featured original scholarship from all over the country. The conference, where professors and Elvis impersonators rubbed elbows, is to become an annual event.
Chadwick came to Elvis via Herman Melville;: "Reading through the Polynesian novels Omoo, Typee. etc.—I couldn't help thinking of El vis's South Pacific movies," he explains. In 1992 he began teaching "Blue Hawaii: The Polynesian Novels and Hawaiian Movies of Melville and Elvis," the university's (and possibly the country's) first Elvis course. Dubbed "Melvis," the course includes discussion of how Melville's novels are truly cinematic in their; scope—screenplays from a prehlm film era—and how Elvis's movies feature a Melville-style hero who transcends boundaries of race, culture, and society. Chadwick says that he likes to combine "high" and "low" culture to expose what he maintains to be a false distinction. "Studying Elvis is essential for understanding the modern South and American Culture in general," Chadwick asserts. The New York Times Magazine recently published his take on the "Leg Wiggle." It stemmed, he insists, from the movements of Pentecostal preachers and gospel singers and did not represent a conscious effort by Elvis to be sexy. But then there's the really big question: where did Chadwick stand on the stamp issue: young and skinny or fat and sequined? "I abstained," Chadwick dodges, "because they're equally important. Fat Elvis is an American tragedy— we look to this figure as a reflection of our own problems: consumption, depression, obesity, boredom, pain. There's a mythic logic at work with Elvis. His downfall is part of his appeal."
Chadwick s'75 caughtonto ElvisthroughMelville.
