Shelf Life: Assault on the Citadel

F OR decades now, conservatives have been complaining about the failure of the academy to defend the cultural patrimony. If the university is not going to transmit to young people the highest achievements of the human mind and heart, it has forfeited its true mission and become a mere accrediting agency for the Upper Middle Class; such an institution will, for a time, hide its intellectual irrelevance behind huge financial endowments— but the day of reckoning will surely come. The marvelous new book Theory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent (Co- lumbia, 725 pp., $29.50), edited by Daphne Patai and Will H.

Corral, shows that the day of reckoning may be nearer than we think—because it shows that conserva- tives are no longer alone in their critique of a failing institution. Theory’s Empire is a splendid achieve- ment, a collection of 47 essays by schol- ars who object to the recent dominance of capital-T Theory in higher education— the historic shift away from an emphasis on intellectual and aesthetic content (artworks, histories, etc.) to a totalizing discourse making generous use of ab- stractions that are half-baked, pretentious, and arbitrary. The book’s tone is estab- lished even before page one, by a cartoon opposite the title page: A couple of mice are discussing a box of cereal labeled “Deconstruction Breakfast Food Pro- duct.” One mouse comments: “Pretty dry and flavorless, isn’t it?” The other retorts: “Your question is informed, or should I

About the Author

Michael Potemra

Michael Potemra was a literary editor for National Review.

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F OR decades now, conservatives have been complaining about the failure of the academy to defend the cultural patrimony. If the university is not going to transmit to young people the highest achievements of the human mind and heart, it has forfeited its true mission and become a mere accrediting agency for the Upper Middle Class; such an institution will, for a time, hide its intellectual irrelevance behind huge financial endowments— but the day of reckoning will surely come. The marvelous new book Theory’s Empire: An Anthology of Dissent (Co- lumbia, 725 pp., $29.50), edited by Daphne Patai and Will H.

Corral, shows that the day of reckoning may be nearer than we think—because it shows that conserva- tives are no longer alone in their critique of a failing institution. Theory’s Empire is a splendid achieve- ment, a collection of 47 essays by schol- ars who object to the recent dominance of capital-T Theory in higher education— the historic shift away from an emphasis on intellectual and aesthetic content (artworks, histories, etc.) to a totalizing discourse making generous use of ab- stractions that are half-baked, pretentious, and arbitrary. The book’s tone is estab- lished even before page one, by a cartoon opposite the title page: A couple of mice are discussing a box of cereal labeled “Deconstruction Breakfast Food Pro- duct.” One mouse comments: “Pretty dry and flavorless, isn’t it?” The other retorts: “Your question is informed, or should I