The Contempt felt by Left Intellectuals towards their peers

[christian a. gregory]

i don't know about whether litcritters have the sole responsibility for
saving the soul of the global left, but it seems to me that, given the
academic division of labor these days, almost no one else in the academy is
in a position to even address the problem. although litcritters can
pronounce the name of marx as few of their peers in other disciplines can,
it is becoming clearer, even in the much ballyhooed anti-discipline called
"cultural studies," that marx--and especially marx as political economist,
dialectician etc.--will soon be off limits. the criticisms of marx as
"reductive" (which folks like butler never tire of repeating) are especially
galling, since what they mean is that any analysis that tries to imagine the
relation between economic, political and cultural life is off the table,
since *any* assertion or demonstration that suggests that economics matter
at all is vulgar.

looking forward to my unemployment.

christian
at the merciful end of graduate school