Pomposity

[Henry]

I think this guy's pretty much on the money:

http://drownedinink.livejournal.com/828055.html 

"Nonetheless, I would resent being called a "conservative" academic. In the
field of history, studying sexuality, especially homosexuality, is still
something that sparks resistence or, worse, apathy. Nor do I believe in
Western cultural exceptionalism, that gender is anything more than a
construct, that moral relativism has been a negative influence, that
capitalism is necessary for social and economic progress, or any of the
other criteria of the standard "conservative" intellectual. Even in literary
studies, I don't reject the profound value of many modernist and
postmodernist works (although I admit that I just can't "get" Thomas
Pynchon) or subscribe to the "Emperor's New Clothes" theory of modern
literature, which frankly I find as dismissive and elitist as the academic
critics who would, on the other hand, sneer that "Lord of the Rings" or
Stephen King are not "real" literature. (As an aside: I also dislike the
inherent bias against genre and popular fiction in many academic circles and
I don't understand why people, particularly critics, assume that one has to
gravitate toward one extreme or the other. Why not have equal critical
appreciation for James Joyce's "Ulysses" and Toni Morrison's "Song of
Solomon" as well as H.P. Lovecraft's "Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" and
Ursula Le Guin's "Left Hand of Darkness"?)"

Henry M
http://www.urdomain.us/kcuf.htm