Thursday, June 7, 2012

PoMo goo

If you occasionally have the misfortune to read anything current of academic writing in the squishier fields, you will – or at least I will – shake your head at the ornate, obfuscatory density of it all. Try this:
1. Smith and Lyotardist narrative In the works of Smith, a predominant concept is the concept of postconceptual culture. But Foucault’s model of capitalist nationalism suggests that language may be used to marginalize the proletariat, but only if the premise of postdeconstructivist dematerialism is invalid; if that is not the case, narrativity has significance. The main theme of the works of Smith is the role of the participant as poet. Sontag uses the term ‘neocultural discourse’ to denote a self-supporting totality. Thus, the subject is contextualised into a postdeconstructivist dematerialism that includes art as a paradox. An abundance of narratives concerning Lyotardist narrative may be found. But Lyotard promotes the use of predialectic textual theory to challenge hierarchy.
But, wait … the whole thing is a shuck. Thing is, it reads like stuff that is published and taken seriously. The excerpt is taken from an entry in a site you'll find here, The Postmodernism Generator. Go there and snicker at the PoMos. A note at the bottom pages refers to a fine joke, a bogus article by a physics professor – that's a real field – that was accepted by a cultural-criticism journal. Those people are so annoying and grotesque.

1 comment:

Sugar Magnolia said...

What a hoot! Bloviated, stilted (my professor's favorite word when she would - gently - criticize my writing), pompous....the perfect scholarly work! I love it.

As bad as it is, still beats the hell out of the VicAd (you knew it had to be said). At least the spelling is impeccable.