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Rey Chow writes about academic literature and how it turtles in on itself, folding inwards to protect itself from modernist, deconstructionist tendencies to tear everything apart at the seams. Obtuse prose and specialized jargon are really just a way to protect literature's trust in itself as a valid form of expression. You need access to a particular school of thought to unravel the argument and if you have that access, chances are you've already been inundated with a kind of academic acceptance for the terminology contained within the texts.

I like the metaphor of academic literature as a turtle: slow moving, hard shell, soft centre and a little tail out back that doesn't do much of anything. Sometimes the turtle is ponderous, and sometimes it eats flies and slow-moving beetles in a swamp. Usually, though, the turtle just sleeps and dreams about the politics of insect consumption. I want to be the tail of academia, because most girls at the zoo agree that the tail makes the turtle. It's the cutest part, the prettiest pony in an ugly green stable. I will be Academia Lite, Academeasy Peasy™, the beginning of a new breed of talk-show scholarship.

Posted by Chris at 05:05 PM >> Commentations (1)