Nice bit of polemic - something Paglia stopped being good at quite a while back.
Sexual Personae is an infuriating book, but fun can be had with it. I
was well into Theory around the time her next one came out, which
included an essay on the Corruption of the Humanities that ran a
variety of choice insults aimed at my newly-adopted cabal: Derrida's
"method" was "masturbation without pleasure" (well, maybe if you've
already frigged yourself half to death, Camille - I was still hard at
work honing my technique at the time); Foucault appealed to
"game-playing minds with unresolved malice towards society" - at least
it kept us off the streets.
I forget what she said about Lacan, but you can pretty much say what
you like about Lacan - the Lacanians will symptomatise your utterance
and stick it back to you with (k)nobs on faster than you can say
"phallogocentricity" (and I can say it pretty fast - I've had
practice), so fair dos really.
Dominic
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