[Mark Allinson]

Further to the post above (and still on-topic concerning the reasons "Why Mainstream shouldn't be a dirty word in Poetry"), I wanted to post this excerpt from a review of a very funny satire on the pomo academy.

Quincy recommended this novel to me (The Lecturer's Tale , by David Hynes) and I am enjoying it immensely. Thanks, Quincy!

I post this to give some idea (allowing for the exaggerations of the genre) of the type of lunacy abroad of late in many Western universities:

Anyone who reads The Lecturer's Tale will undoubtedly conclude [that for this particular generation of writers, the environments richest in the satirist's raw materials – pomposity, stupidity, pretension, vice, etc. – can be found within the ivied edifices of our universities], for the academics in Hynes's fictional university, Midwestern, are as barbaric a lot as any that has been portrayed in literature. Fortunately for readers, Hynes eviscerates his despicable subjects in hilarious style. And though the excessive climax stretched this readers tolerance uncomfortably, rarely, if ever, have I read a more entertaining book. And I have never read a book with more hilarious caricatures. Take for example this description of literary theorist Lester Antilles, who has just arrived at Midwestern to apply for a recently vacated chair in the department.


In a discipline where scholarly heft was defined by being more postcolonial than thou, Lester Antilles was the heftiest of the lot. As a graduate student at an Ivy League school he had announced to his dissertation committee that doctoral theses at major Western universities were a primary locus of the objectifying colonialist gaze on native subjects, and he refused on principle to participate in the marginalization of indigenous voices or to become complicit with the hegemonic discourse of Western postcolonial cultural imperialism. In practice, this meant that for six years he refused to take classes, attend seminars, or write a dissertation. As a result of this ideologically engaged nonparticipation, he was offered tenured positions even before he had his Ph.D., but by refusing to write a book or any articles on his topic – publishing with major university presses being even more complicit with imperialism than writing dissertations – he provoked a fierce bidding war. Columbia won by offering him an endowed chair and a full professorship, and on Morningside Heights he courageously continued his principled refusal to teach any classes, hold any office hours, publish any books, serve on any committees, or supervise any dissertations. For this demanding and theoretically sophisticated subaltern intervention in the dominant discourse, Antilles made well into the six figures, more money than the President of the United States.
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]http://www.powells.com/features/bibliolatry/4.html

[This message has been edited by Mark Allinson (edited September 18, 2006).]