How about a paper explaining that thing on His head?

Download that dictionary app into your iPods, Brucies. The second installment of "Glory Days: A Bruce Springsteen Symposium" is coming to Monmouth University in September.

If it's anything like the first one, held at the college in 2006, expect 300 or more academics and swooning fans, often in the same person, from around the world reading papers on topics such as "Three Chords Against Oppression: A Critical Inquiry into the Didactics of Springsteen." 

Like the first one, Bruce II is being organized by Mark Bernhard, Ph.D., director of continuing and professional education at Virginia Tech.

Who's it for? From the symposium website:

If you are an educator, journalist, historian, musicologist, cultural anthropologist, sociologist, or political scientist, or if you are a fan with an interest in the scholarship regarding Bruce Springsteen, this conference is for you.

redbankgreenman covered the first one for a couple of other publications, and his favorite memory is of his brief interview with  Springsteen biographer/buddy Dave Marsh, who spent  most of the weekend surrounded by a cloud of admirers.

As he hustled across campus to a seminar on Springsteen and punk rock, Marsh said that 60 percent of the papers listed in the program

And yet, the bug spray remained under the sink as presenters rocked out on topics such as "Standing at Dysfunction Junction: Springsteen as ACOA," whatever that means; "Just a Meanness in the World: Springteen's Antiheroes and Narrative Forensic Psychology;" and "The Cross of My Calling: The Christocentric Imagination of Bruce Springsteen."

Himself did not make an appearance that weekend.

The symposium is scheduled for September 25-27, and the schedule includes seminars, tours, outings to live shows. Admission prices range from $195 for a one-day student pass to $345.

Abstracts for papers are due in by May 29.

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