On The Origin of Academic Jargon, Part II

Of academics I obtained twenty-six kinds who speak of "deterritorialization" without fear of fructuous or vegetal reprisal.  Seeing this gradation of thought in one large but intimately related group of scholars, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of thought in an isolated department, one species had been taken and modified for different ends.  Mr. Gould observed that subsequent to one scholar uttering the phrase "phallogocentritheatricality," his compatriots brooded for days over the Butlerian intervention into the Cixousian supplement of the Derridean "text."   Although they were supremely frustrated by their inability to crack this nut, their consternation afforded Mr. Gould and I an opportunity to note the disharmony among the various scholarly species. 

The most curious fact is the perfect differentiation in the mind of each critic.  Of sub-group Astructatornis, lately brought from French confines, the eight species can often be seen entering the thorniest of vines and removing from them nuts of the aforementioned sort.  Astructatornis then examine the nut and determine it both the cause of their hunger and of their satisfaction.  If their earnest and searching cogitation fails, the nut will be turned over to their sexually dimorphic, booby-infatuated associates.  The vampiric Zizicornis feed off the blood of boobies.  They will stare at the nut for some time before determining it neither booby nor sublimated surrogate and therefore unimportant.  Unwilling to be induced to undertake the office of Butlerian nut-cracker, Zizicornis defer to the bald-headed tyrant-catcher Mr. Waterhouse christened Powapowacornis (after its unique but ultimately repetitive song).   They sing their signature hymnal then depart in anger at the nut's inability to understand that its very nuttiness is constituted by its presence on the beach, amidst these illustrious examples of adaptive radiation.  Excluded from Powapowacornis' august company are the desanguiated boobies asleep on the beach.

The sleeping boobies dream.  They dream of an island on which none but boobies alight and of another on which the scholars fail to crack nuts in the company of other scholars.  For generations each exists in utter isolation.   When by force of accident the scholars venture into unfamiliar environs the indigenous response is of unequivocal hostility.

[X-posted.]

Comments

[Rich Puchalsky]

Whatever witty or not-witty things I might try to say about this would just be provocation for the usual O.G.s. But it's funny.

[Brian]

I can't wait for the PBS special with Scott Eric Kaufman in the role of sir David Attenborough...

[Adam Kotsko]

You know what, Scott? I believe I speak on behalf of all of the Theory people when I say that I find this post to be both completely offensive and utterly uncalledfor. We (by which I mean "the Theory people other than me") have been holding a symposium on Spivak in order to heal all the wounds that ail our troubled Internet community -- and all you can do is compare Theorists to species of a famously extinct bird! Your genocidal ambitions are obvious enough to even the most casual reader -- and yet here we get the Usual Suspect himself "yucking it up" at this piece of unmitigated hate-speech.

Well, Scott, I've just got one thing to say to you: I hope you get a rhizome in your colon. Maybe then you wouldn't spew such phallogocentric CRAP!!!

The truce is over before it began!!!!!!!!!!1

[Sine.Qua.Non]

what a hoot..........you describe this so well, I can see it in my mind's eye.

PS- quit picking your nose and work on your dissertation.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Adam is funny too.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Finches? Extinct? What, did you eat 'em all yesterday?

[Adam Kotsko]

Oh, now you want us to kill ourselves off? Great.

[Matt]

Ah finches, yes. They're just feathered dinosaurs, I hear.