I missed this, but caught the letters section in the Globe today which pointed me back to this interview with Camille Paglia. A great read. Love this part:
Then feminism came along and decided greatness was a conspiracy foisted on us by men. People would criticize me by saying, “She’s writing about Michelangelo when the really important person was this woman….” But wait. There’s no way she came up to Michelangelo’s ankle. So what we’re getting now is people who never heard of Michelangelo or Leonardo because they are dead white males.
Today’s letters section has Camille Paglia clarifying that no, she doesn’t think all of York University is a backwater, but that
The York coterie whom I did indeed call “shallow” were snide, simpering postmodernists, a parasitic infestation of servile acolytes of a sterile ideology that continues to plague many Anglo-American universities.
I plan on memorizing this: “snide, simpering postmodernists, a parasitic infestation of servile acolytes of a sterile ideology” for the next run in with the York student union over pro-life clubs. Or any student union for that matter.
by 
It’s practically a tongue twister!
Interesting, my neighbour mentioned this article today, I had no idea what it was about, so must read it now in order to continue our over-the-fence conversation.
I am sure she is pro-choice, and who knows where we will go with this.
The university I attended in the UK was sort of based on this principle. My Open University textbook that sums it up best is ‘Shakespeare, Aphra Behn and the Canon’. I can almost guarantee that’s the only time Aphra Behn and Shakespeare have been in the same sentence! On the surface, I like the idea of exploring exemplary women and minority writers from periods dominated by men, but it’s true that many students will graduate not having read the typical canonical works considered necessary for a ‘background’. I also think that our current multimedia self-publishing climate will continue to make a canon more and more difficult to establish. It makes me wonder what will happen to the role of scholar.