> Aren't they just saying, well, given the onslaught of Mordor, our theories
> aren't that useful?
Sure, but the next coil of the Elvish dialectic/Bourdieusian inquiry is, why does a text written in 1947 by Tolkien, a politically reactionary but philologically gifted scion of Brit academia, give us a profounder insight into the essence of the US oiligarchy (and, maybe, into the resistance against such) than an expensive lit-conference for the tenured and deaned?
I mean, they could've spent $20 to give Fred Jameson a ticket to see "The Two Towers" and spent the rest on a grad student travel fund or something.
-- DRR