2016

For some years in academia the terms “deconstruction” and “theory”, the brainchildren of Derrida, Foucault, Horkheimer, Adorno, Althusser, Gramsci and others who regard literature’s role primarily as an agent of Marxian societal change, have enjoyed pride of place, or ideological hegemony, and been the staple diet of students in university English faculties throughout Australia and elsewhere. Brave new schools. The New Left’s capture of curriculum is amply documented in works such as Roger Kimball’s Tenured Radicals, Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, Geoffrey Partington’s Teacher Education in England and Wales and numerous articles and books by Kevin Donnelly.…