> I don't buy the
> narrative of political/epistemological necessity that Butler trots out, any
> more than I buy it on the part of Fred Jameson or Homi Bhaba. Just about
> everyone on this list is proof positive against that "necessity." Which
> seems to make it an academic thing (and I'm an academic, so I'm not *just*
> bashing academics, though I'm doing that too).
>
> All best
> Christian
Yes, I don't buy the orwell-Adorno dichotomy either. Orwell was a working journalist--he had to be readily understandable. Adorno, although a professor, is best known today for Minima Moralia, which is not an academic text but a much more literary book, written under immense personal pressure, for which (I'm guessing) he imagined a tiny audience of like-minded souls. The works of today's academic theorists are meant to be read by grad students as part of an academic socialization process, the acquisition of a specialized and exclusive language. Unlike the audience of either orwell or Adorno, grad students are not really free to say Butler is turgid and barely comprehensible--their job is to learn to write that way too!
I always think it's interesting the way the most supposedly "radical" profs never analyze their own social position.
Katha