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April 23rd, 2008 5:26 am

First tragedy, then farce dept., bureau of advanced academic fatuousness

Many of my readers, being sensible souls, will be innocent of the name Homi K. Bhabha. The former Chester D. Tripp Professor of the Humanities at the University of Chicago is now the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities and Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at University College, London. Pretty impressive, eh? Professor Bhabha made his name as an exponent of “post-colonial studies,” i.e., a reader-proof species of anti-Western multicultural claptrap that even now makes many graduate students salivate. In case you believe that “reader-proof” is unkind, allow me to introduce you to this snippet from his much-admired essay “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse”:

Within that conflictual economy of colonial discourse which Edward Said describes as the tension between the synchronic panoptical vision of domination–the demand for identity, stasis–and the counter-pressure of the diachrony of history–change, difference–mimicry represents an ironic compromise. If I may adapt Samuel Weber’s formulation of the marginalizing vision of castration, . . .

Well, let’s draw a veil over Mr. Weber’s “marginalizing vision.” You get the drift. And the amazing thing is that Professor Bhahba can keep it up over the long haul. The whole essay is just like that. Here, for example, are his concluding observations

In the ambivalent world of the “not quite/not white,” on the margins of metropolitan desire, the founding objects of the Western world become the erratic, eccentric, accidental objets trouvés of the colonial discourse–the part-objects of presence. It is then that the body and the book loose [sic] their representational authority. Black skin splits under the racist gaze, displaced into signs of bestiality, genitalia, grotesquerie, which reveal the phobic myth of the undifferentiated whole white body.

I first read those words back in the 1980s and knew instantly that its author was destined for academic stardom. And so it has come to pass. Homi K. Bhabaha has it all: exotic name, correct ethnic background, impeccable left-wing political opinions, and a prose style that you’d need dynamite to penetrate. Professor Bhabha spends most of his time emitting anti-Western and especially anti-American sentiments for his admiring colleagues and students. What better place to dispense wisdom about the depredations of the West than Harvard University, that great friend of the wretched of the earth? But even Marxoid professors of post-colonial studies must occasionally relax. What do you suppose Homi K. Bhabha does in his spare time? The Harvard Alumni magazine has part of the story. Last year’s May-June issue, which I am only now seeing for the first time, has a two-page color spread advertising a number of Harvard Alumni cruises. One that we just missed–it was scheduled for February 22 – March 9, 2008–invited Harvard alums to “Experience Rajasthan as the royal families did. Your journey traces the battles of medieval Rajput kingdoms with the Mughals, and highlights the resulting diversity of art, architecture, and culture,” etc., etc. And the best part? Your guides for the 17-day trip were Homi and Jackie Bhabha. What a missed opportunity! Check out this site for updated information: who knows where they might be going next!!

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25 Comments

1. John N. Frary:

A quick look at this quack’s prose and pass on is my advice. I’ve just received a report from Lagado University in Kafka So. Dakota that Prof. Otto Garnichts has been found dead in his office, eyes glazed like a Ming vase and a copy of “Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse” held in a parlytic grip. The Kafka County Coroner reports that the poor fellow bored himself to death.

Apr 23, 2008 - 9:32 am 2. Let Them Eat Cake:

I wonder if Homi Bhabha et entourage will be taking pictures or sending postcards back home during their trip to Rajastan similar to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:India.Mumbai.01.jpg

or the somewhat less disturbing (because it shows no actual people):

http://indiatugofwar.pbwiki.com/f/poverty%20in%20india.jpg

Probably not. After all, they’re only interested in the India of the maharajas and maharanees……not the India that we all know and love.

Should these unpleasant sights be thrust upon them, though, they can always sojourn to the nearest pub for a refreshing and mind-numbing drink, in the same way that this chap is being refreshed by friend:

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/images/poverty_india11.jpg

Apr 23, 2008 - 11:42 am 3. Robert:

Hmmm. I’ve had many desires in my life. Physical bodies encompass many of them. The “metropolitan”, not so much.

Bet this guy pulls in some serious bucks. I’m in the wrong business.

Apr 23, 2008 - 11:48 am 4. LSD:

I guess that a pre-requisite to the sort of hard work required to forge psychosexual babble into such a jewel-festooned weapon might be some sort of personal injury. It raises questions. -Is it enough that your name sounds like the word for ’saliva’ in the mother tongue of one of history’s more accomplished conquistadors? Is that enough to wear one down to such a state of irritation?

Apr 23, 2008 - 12:50 pm 5. stuart wiliamson:

Surely this is a send-up? The Dickensian name,.. Professor Ali Bhabha, the black sheep of Bhagdad, bahbling blatant balderdash and publishing bilious blather that absolutely no one bhathers to read. Does he have a blahg?

Apr 23, 2008 - 11:39 pm 6. huxley:

At first I thought it was a send-up too. No such luck. Going over to Wiki and checking his background, I found the usual suspects: Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Said. Even within the academic community, his prose has been criticized as having nothing to say beyond neologisms and buzzwords.

Bhabha was awarded second prize in a bad writing contest for:

If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to “normalize” formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.

Apr 24, 2008 - 4:55 am 7. J.J. Sefton:

Word to the “wise” -

Hey, “Homi.” Don’t play ‘dat…

Apr 24, 2008 - 5:51 am 8. rvastar:

“Sheesh!”-K-Bhabha reminds me of an old manager of mine.

I was a junior project manager in the procurement department of a major credit card company. My manager – let’s call him “Manny” – had two doctorate degrees from Cornell in mathematics and psychology. His job title was “Strategies and Ideas Analyst”, which consisted of him attending 4-5 meetings every day, giving his learned opinion on organizational matters (his focus in his psychology studies had been Organizational Psychology).

One day, Manny was leading a meeting about some organizational matter or another, with several senior managers in attendance. He talked, they nodded, they scribbled. And Everything coming out of his mouth had the same inscrutable tone as “Sheesh!”-K-Bhabha’s examples above.

And then it dawned on me: Manny was completely full of sh!#! He had no idea what he was talking about, and he was literally just spewing out convoluted bullsh!# in an effort to sound like he did. And what’s worse, I also realized that none of the people in the meeting had a clue as to what he was talking about either! Everyone was just nodding and staring, with these utterly blank expressions on their faces…scared to look at one another because they were afraid that it would be obvious that they had no idea what was going on.

It was a priceless moment…it really took all of my will power not to bust out laughing. And it was my first realization of just how much bullsh!# goes on everyday in the workplace. I love this country!

Now, don’t get me wrong, Manny was a really great guy…very intelligent, very friendly. But within six months of my realization, Manny was “moving on to seek better opportunities”.

Last I heard, guess where he ended up?

Apr 24, 2008 - 7:46 am 9. LibertyFreedomPatriot:

Thanks, Roger, for your tireless efforts condemning what you don’t understand (and for the predicable thinly-veiled racism).

Add yet another torch bearer to the long and proud tradition of American anti-intellectualism.

The Right LOVES to play the pitiful victim of liberal aggression. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.

Apr 24, 2008 - 8:16 am 10. Jeremy W:

“The former Tripp Professor of the Humanities at the University of Chicago is now…Professor of the Humanities…at Harvard as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at University College, London.”

He simultaneously raised the level of scholarship at the University of Chicago, Harvard University and University College, London.

Bravo!

Apr 24, 2008 - 9:14 am 11. Joseph Harkness:

Kimbal

You look like you smell of urine.

Apr 24, 2008 - 10:05 am 12. rvastar:

And thanks to you, Liberty, for your tireless efforts condemning what you can’t refute, only attack…and for the predicable, thinly-veiled elitism.

Add yet another torch-bearer to the long and proud tradition of anti-American pseudo-intellectualism!

The Left LOVES to play the righteous overlords of acceptable discourse. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so sad.

Hey! Do you think it’s too late for Leftist #1 to change his campaign slogan from “Change We Can Believe In!” to “Please, No Questions!”

Apr 24, 2008 - 12:46 pm 13. Anonymous:

LibertyFreedomPatriot :
Thanks, Roger, for your tireless efforts condemning what you don’t understand (and for the predicable thinly-veiled racism).

You’re kidding, right? Show me what it is to be understood in any of those Bhabha fragments. Any piece of writing–in fact, any proposition–can be paraphrased/restated.
C’mon, take up the challenge! Bring it down to my level. (I’m European so “anti-intellctual” doesn’t stick, whatever that means). Show me what I’m missing.

As to Mr. Kimball’s “veiled racism”: soo predictable. Snooze.

Apr 24, 2008 - 12:53 pm 14. Cristina:

LibertyFreedomPatriot :
Thanks, Roger, for your tireless efforts condemning what you don’t understand (and for the predicable thinly-veiled racism).

As to Mr. Kimball’s “veiled racism”: soo predictable. Snooze.

Apr 24, 2008 - 12:54 pm 15. Paul from Hamburg:

I am reminded of great line from NYPD Blue (I may be paraphrasing a little:

Detective:”Isn’t tiresome thinking of the absolute cleverest way to say everything”
District Attorney:”You have no idea.”

Apr 24, 2008 - 2:12 pm 16. Solomonia:

Harvard Educator or Sokal Hoax?

You be the judge: Within that conflictual economy of colonial discourse which Edward Said describes as the tension between the synchronic panoptical vision of domination–the demand for identity, stasis–and the counter-pressure of the diachrony of his…

Apr 24, 2008 - 6:49 pm 17. David Thomson:

Homi K. Bhabha is simply another example of Harvard University’s increasing marginalization. It is fair to describe much of this institution as something of an intellectual whore house. Harvard is also a diploma mill. Inflated degrees may be the norm. Just about everybody, for instance, graduates with honors.

The American public fails to realize the extent of the Harvard scam operation. I sometimes half jokingly assert that there should be a RICO investigation concerning its questionable activities. The school motto should be: slut it out good on behalf of the leftist agenda—and we will take care of you.

Apr 24, 2008 - 7:09 pm 18. thomas hazlewood:

I will be astonished if Ellsworth Toohey was not instrumental in Bhabha’s advancement.

Apr 24, 2008 - 8:13 pm 19. Cristina:

LibertyFreedomPatriot:

It’s been almost 12 hours since my challenge, and still no response from you.
What I suggested was a simple, freshman-writing class exercise. What’s so hard?!?
If by tomorrow, April 25, 2008, at 12:00 p.m., you fail to post an intelligible paraphrase of Bhabha’s deep thoughts for my unwashed, un-intellectual self, you shouldn’t be surprised if I exult in a fully merited “Quod erat demonstrandum.”

Apr 24, 2008 - 9:02 pm 20. Cristina:

LibertyFreedomPatriot:

Apr 24, 2008 - 9:12 pm 21. Carolyn:

How odd these creatures of feigned intellect be.If they are praised, and hired, it would be of some interest to know who chose and contracted them.Ah, but if all must get “A’s” and graduate with Honors, then, we can no longer aspire to critical
standards for hiring the ‘finest,’
most, brilliant genius, because we ALL are-in our own way, which must never be questioned. How does the ‘elite’ judge who is ,or isn’t? How are they assessed as ‘elitist’, if there aren’t standards by which to judge? More ‘elitist’ fallacies burst,or is it busted? Oh, well, no matter.
Where is Emily Dickinson when you need her? Or is there someone out there with an old-fashioned
qualification of actual knowledge of Miss Dickinson’s oeuvre?
As a matter of fact, where is S.J.Perelman? Twain? All right, on our bookshelves.
( I’m sorry, if I exposed anyone else.)
The Left is loosing its true thinkers and writers.As it happens,
The Spectator.UK has a current blog on whom is
defecting, or, if you prefer, coming out, i.e.Amis,Mamet,Hitchens.
They dare write having come out of the morass,the fog that creeps in as one tries to hold on, because one cannot help it if one is truly a searcher-a thinker, an intellect.It is the compulsion to understand the world in which we live as it progresses and regresses.
(Some are quicker than others.It is true.)
As they leave, they expose those left behind, who in turn, frequently, rise to the bait to counter.They are stuck and can’t get out.
Writers are, also, compulsive communicators, and their transformation is laid out before the public.( as though everyone, or anyone else cares.Be that as it may.)Because they want to communicate, and to write is to communicate.
The ‘Harvard ilk’ cannot.They can only obscure.At some point in writing, one has to work to be clear.One wants to be clear.This ‘ilk’ is muddled, non-objective, Narcissistic while feeling inferior. They are unskilled in critical faculties, and, thus, they are incapable of it.Yet, who in this false realm will admit to it- any of it? Thus, he passes, and they pass.The perfect mud pie.
However, returning to Ali, judging from Roger’s excerpt and
attending description of this post-Colonialist,Harvard example, what is curious is why the animosity is concentrated on the U.S.? Why not on Britain? It makes one suspect, in Ali’s case, he is lacking basic knowledge of Britain’s Empirical reign in India.
Note: I want to thank each of you who gave me a laugh.

Apr 24, 2008 - 11:47 pm 22. Larry Rasczak:

Yet another excellent reason to send one’s children to Texas A&M.

I suppose the Ivy League may still carry some weight east of the Berkshires; but as this shows, they have become nothing more than overpriced schools trying to slide by on a reputation for academic excellence that was last deserved during the Garfield Administration.

P.S. Kudos to thomas hazlewood, on the Ellsworth Toohey reference!

Apr 25, 2008 - 7:11 am 23. Lgude:

Given the intelligibility of the Harvard professor in question and that of the commenters on this thread I must ask is Harvard really necessary?

Apr 25, 2008 - 9:50 pm 24. tanstaafl:

Mr. Bhabha may have a few mildly interesting points hiding in all that verbiage, but his reader would become exhausted trying to ferret them out.

Cowardly academicians often hide in a fog of polysyllabic pontifications, but Mr. Bhabha’s obscurantism is an extreme case.

Where did “Manny” end up, rvastar ?

Apr 26, 2008 - 7:19 am 25. Alex Reed:

Perhaps we are too quick to dismiss the attainments of the good Mr. Bhabha. True, his work is just a down-market parroting, in English translation, of the lexicon used by his French mentors: Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, (and distantly, Barthes), etc. However, it is no mean feat for anyone to have mastered this obscure vocabulary (and he gets extra points if he’s read all the ‘texts’ in the original French), tortured mindscape, and the prose style that results. This much is true.

The problem I find with the mercifully small sampling of Mr. B.’s work that I’ve read is that amidst all the free-floating verbiage there is no there there. As a student of the Frenchies in the great long-ago, and as nutsy as many of them were up-close in real life, persistence with their tangled prose often yields a wealth of unique ideas and systems. Such effort is ill rewarded in the Bhabha oeuvre that I’ve glanced at. What ideas can be extracted remain like wisps of seaweed on the great tide of words — coherence, as R.K. has pointed out, is not a predominant characteristic. What ideas can be discerned are but borrowed castoffs from the wardrobe of Mr. Said with some added froufrou from the glittering geegaw boxes of the French contingent. So much for the ‘reality’.

What we must admire, however, is the great edifice of academic success that Mr. B. has spun from such disparate bits. He has shown great acuity and enterprise by correctly identifying and taking advantage of the supreme twin turn-ons for American academia: masochistic self-loathing, and instant swoon for the impenetrable lexicon of their French betters. This is his genius turn, and the motor of his success. Marketing is everything! Hats off!

Apr 26, 2008 - 7:58 am