I was in grad school when deconstructionism/pomo hit, and I went and studied Greek and Latin to get away from it.
It seemed just when the academy could no longer avoid talking about the political issues raised by the Vietnam war, civil rights movements, and women's rights movements.....pomo became the thing to do. An ersatz icing of radicalism covering glorified close readings that erased history by making everything relative...and further removing intellectuals from public discourse by making their discourse incomprehensible.
Joanna