His sentence structure makes it clear that they are. It's all "not only...but also" statements, with the former always designating the high culture examples and the latter the low culture ones.

Yes, it looks like Boudreaux really is that dumb.

And gcgiles hits the nail on the head with the implicit "then why are you bothering to write this?" gotcha.

Further to that, in my wayward academic career, the professors most fervently wedded to post-modernism were, by a very long chalk, the ones most violently opposed to dissenting views. Even back in the late eighties, there was always a significant proportion of students in the theory class who wanted to challenge or question whichever theorist we were tackling at the time, but they were continually, methodically shut down. (At one point the lecturer actually yelled, "You're wrong! We're not discussing this!" to a student!) On the other hand, the two professors I had (in completely different disciplines) who were most vocally and resolutely opposed to post-modernism in all its guises were the two who most keenly welcomed dissent and argument in their classes, and those were the classes in which people really could get to grips with theory and the different ways it applied to the texts and academic disciplines in question.

I think that phenomenon you observe of poststructuralist zeal has a lot to do with the radical politics often involved--the occasionally stifling combination of high theory and social justice. What better place for activism than the classroom, of course, but at the same time, it can be not very conducive to an open market of ideas (although, I can only guess how that professor might disdainfully respond to the phrase "open market of ideas": oppressive, liberal capitalist, humanist...). Entrenchment and politics often go hand-in-hand.

At any rate, the best that can be said these days is that there is more tolerance toward the magpie, picking and choosing his arguments among the various fields of critical theory. One can blithely juggle Gramsci, Kristeva, Spivak, and Butler within the same article, and I think it serves the reader well to note how a cultural Marxist, a Lacanian feminist, a postcolonialist, and a queer theorist might intersect at certain points of an argument.

My approach to theory these days is that it's often a fascinating account of how this or that individual reads, but not necessarily a way that I myself want to read. In general I prefer practical criticism. The critics I tend to respond to the most are close readers and archetypal critics.

I'm a little surprised that someone would make that claim in 2010, but lord yes, both abstract expressionism and pop art were greeted by many big art critics and academics with the same enthusiasm they would have for flaming bags of dog mess on their doorstep.

True. But then again so were the Impressionists. Might almost expect to find them included among the low-culture examples for all the up-to-dateness of that list.

Shakespeare and Verdi were pretty low-culture too.

That's why I never heard of them before.

Meanwhile, Amazon's three top-selling books are these Fifty Shades things that started out as Twilight fanfic and boast writing even worse than Stephenie Meyer's.

That Twilight line from the second one-star review is brilliant.

And studios are battling now to buy the rights for those.

My favorite obviously planted-by-the-producers IMDB trivia, re: Atlas Shrugged: Part I:


Sure.

Actually that had been known for a while. Apparently Jolie really loves the book and tried to get it made for years, unrelated to this production though.

Hey, sometimes you have to compromise your initial vision. Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, sometimes you just need an unknown to play Raggy Daggert or whatever

Thank heavens you warned me - I was just about to show it to my kids after our trip to Hugo proved such a success. I'll try Taxi Driver instead, as they used to be big fans of Postman Pat and Fireman Sam.

Taxi Driver Travis? Surprised no one's made a toy like that yet...

You don't remember the Bickle Me Elmo craze?

I was going to the suggest the "You Talkin' to Me? Elmo", but that'll do.

There are no words for this epic blog review of The Innkeepers. I am speechless...


but wait, there's aslo "historical/political" analysis!


and there is so much more. dear god is there ever so much more.

The analysis of sex and free will in Cabin In The Woods is quite entertaining. I can only imagine what they'd make of Damsels In Distress.