Meanwhile, over at Invisible Adjunct, a place I generally admire, it’s time for a seasonal round of MLA bashing. The impetus is a slight piece in the Chronicle, which, while meant to be taken lightly, nonetheless seems a bit too taken with its own slights. The chief offenders in the subsequent discussion turn out to be a clutch of academic hate mongers hanging around the comments section. Someone who goes by “Geraldine” is particularly crude. Anyway. Kathleen says it all, much more eloquently than I could (or did, or tried to in the comments section at IA’s). The author of the Chronicle story weighs in there too, and cannot be said to distinguish himself. As I opined over at IA’s: Sad.
Posted by mgk at December 18, 2003 03:40 PMJust curious, where does something like David Lodge's _Small World_ fit in the twisted hydra serpent of academic hate mongering, healthy internal good humor, and unhealthy self-loathing triggered or not by academic hate mongering? Has the Times et al made so many pale journalistic imitations of Lodge's novel that we don't like it anymore?
Posted by: Midnight Platypus at December 21, 2003 07:13 PM | Link to CommentHealthy internal good humor in my book, and I still like it a lot. His most recent one though, _Thinks_, left me kind of cold.
Lodge pokes and prods, and sometimes he hits a sore point, but it's pretty clear that he still cherishes the academy as an institution. Maybe that's the difference.
Posted by: MGK at December 21, 2003 07:36 PM | Link to Comment