Today I am deviating from my normal posting on this subject by including this article by Mary Grabar entitled:
Rallying Around Che at a 'Literary' Conference
By Mary Grabar
When charges of doctrinaire Marxism are leveled against professors, the standard procedure is to charge the accusers with misinterpretation---they just can't understand the subtleties of the literary and philosophical profundities being dispensed. In English departments these theories have touched deconstruction, new historicism, post-colonialism, gender studies, disability studies, etc. Most in the field--promoters and detractors alike--know that these theories have roots in Marxism. For those of us alarmed by the politicization of literary studies, it's a difficult message to get out to the world because the cloud of academic verbiage obscures the real sources and aims of such theories…..While most of the public might believe that courses in world literature advance the Western Enlightenment ideas of cosmopolitanism and openness to learning about other cultures, they would be shocked at learning how boldly these professors used the pretext of teaching world literature to advance a political agenda explicitly Marxist and aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement.
But could there be a bright note? At one time I despaired about explaining to the average person the cultural rot that passes as scholarship in English departments today. The more they invoke Che Guevaras their hero, the easier it is to show people what's going on.
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