Further to my article on the stunningly fraudulent Carolyn Guertin, some readers have suggested that the “radical cyber-feminist” is merely an anomaly, albeit a vivid one, and not a reflection on her corner of academia. I’ve subsequently argued that one has to ask how Guertin’s “work” survived evaluation and peer review, and how she has come to find an audience “at conferences and events across Europe.” The fact that Guertin has been employed, and is still employed, by otherwise reputable institutions suggests a systemic dysfunction. Indeed, I’d suggest that Guertin is merely a symptom of a much broader malaise – one that has rendered large areas of academic study irretrievably tendentious and intellectually worthless.

Evidence to support this view can be found via Durham in Wonderland, where the estimable KC Johnson casts a gimlet eye over Duke University’s history department and its postmodern leanings. One faculty member, Professor Pete Sigal, will soon be shaping young minds with courses on colonial Latin American history and a seminar titled Sexual History around the Globe. A synopsis of the seminar asks, somewhat breathlessly:

“What does it mean to sexualize history? How does the historical narrative change as we use sexuality as our reading practice? What happens to the sign of history when confronted with the sign of sexuality? …When we read a military history, we will ask not just about sexuality as a topic within the military (Did soldiers have sex with other soldiers? Did soldiers impregnate prostitutes?), but also about sexuality as a reading process. What happens when we centre our entire analysis of the military by sexualizing the bodies of the soldiers?” 

Heavens. Somebody hand that man a towel.

Professor Sigal is, clearly, eager to “confront” students with the question: “What happens when we focus a feminist and queer analysis on history?” To resolve this burning issue, Johnson turns to Sigal’s previous scholarship, most notably his book, From Moon Goddesses to Virgins: The Colonization of Yucatecan Maya Sexual Desire. The “historical” themes explored by Sigal include The Phallus Without a Body and Transsexuality and the Floating Phallus.

Vatican: the board game. “Historically accurate… the ideal gift.” (H/T, Dan Collins.) // How to hide. // The flying car. “The ultimate off-road vehicle.” With video. More. // Via 1+1=3, stamps featuring UFOs. // Strange goings-on in the woods. // Stephen Law on an improbable universe.  More. // Nick Cohen on unmentionable bad guys. “Even though it’s the truth, on screen it might appear bigoted and jingoistic.” // Dan Collins on BBC bias. “This ignorance of the realities… enabled us to occupy the moral high ground.” // Via Coudal, Gerard Maynard’s Harlem panorama. // The aerodynamic umbrella. “Resists storms up to wind force 10.” // Stairs. // Spiders drugged with caffeine, cannabis, LSD. // Beer festival calendar. Drink globally, quite often. // Blade Runner: The Final Cut. // Via Bedazzled, B-movie trailers from hell. // Franzl Lang. He yodels. (H/T, Vitruvius.) // Screensaver shows global blog activity in real time, more or less. // The Fantastic in Art & Fiction. Strange spaces, peculiar happenings. // Aurora, seen from space. // 1.18.08. Be afraid. // No, fear not, here’s the Japanese It’s Alright Song.

Further to Manish Vij’s claims that Apu is a “crude racist stereotype” and that Hank Azaria is actually a “brown man”, today the Guardian’s very own PC bigot Joseph Harker berates those who dared to disagree.

Readers may remember Mr Harker for his willingness to redefine words to suit his arguments, his repeated assertion that “all white people are racist,” and his belief that, “as a black man… I cannot be racist… because in the global order I do not belong to the dominant group.” (Some of the more discerning Guardian readers have wondered how this remarkable claim might address the realities of “dominant power” in, say, Zimbabwe, or overtly racist assaults committed by people with dark skin.)   

Today, Mr Harker would have us believe that Manish Vij “put across some cogent arguments” – sadly, none of which are specified – and that the disagreement of many readers was in fact an example of the “now wearisome onslaught faced by any ethnic minority writer flagging up the issue of racism”: 

“Overwhelmingly negative, it seems that nearly every commenter either didn’t understand his argument, or didn’t want to. Each (rare) comment expressing empathy with the writer was immediately drowned out by a welter of antis.”

Harker doesn’t appear to entertain the – perhaps more obvious – possibility that readers did understand Vij’s arguments and simply found them wanting or absurd – for instance, the bizarre confusion regarding Mr Azaria’s pigmentation. Instead, Harker blames his non-compliant readers and insinuates some nefarious racial prejudice:

“Now, the Guardian is part of the British national press, which has traditionally been produced by and for white people (though things are slowly beginning to change). But this paper is at least supposed to be at the liberal end of the spectrum, so one would have thought there’d be a few progressive types out there prepared to come forward. But where are you? Have you all been frightened off by the bullies, the boors and the bigots?”   

Naturally, Harker pre-emptively defines “progressives” as those who agree with Manish Vij, and by extension with himself. One therefore wonders whether those who have the temerity to disagree with Mr Harker, even on matters of fact and logic, will in turn be dismissed as cowards, boors and bigots.

Righteously, he continues:

“Some time ago I wrote saying that all white people are racist. I didn’t mean in-your-face, BNP-style racism, but the subtle, unthinking, subliminal kind. Now I think I was being too kind… If we want to have a sensible discussion about race, or racism, is it possible on a general-access website such as this? Or do we need to find a new corner of cyberspace, and boldly go where no stupid white man has gone before?”

It is, I fear, significant that Harker’s solution to encountering unexpected disagreement is to yearn for a different venue and a more sympathetic audience, rather than to present a more convincing argument.

Well-heeled egalitarian Polly Toynbee (“of the Toynbees”) continues her public hissing contest with bumbling rogue, Boris Johnson: 

“Of course if a monkey can be elected mayor of Hartlepool, Boris Johnson might be elected mayor of London. Jester, toff, self-absorbed sociopath and serial liar, the man could still win. Even Conrad Black called him ‘a duplicitous scoundrel’, and he should know. But it’s truly alarming that he who has never run anything except his own image could be in charge of this mighty financial centre – and some of the poorest, neediest boroughs in the country… Don’t be fooled. Despite that designer shambolic demeanour, Boris is not called blond ambition for nothing, with a gargantuan appetite for everything: fame, women, money, praise – and power… Perhaps because he was not born to great wealth, unlike Cameron and Osborne, he revels in everything elite – intellectual, social or monied…”

Here’s Boris on Polly:

“She joins the usual Labour snarling against fee-paying education, and selective education of all kinds. In reality, of course, she is the beneficiary of a highly selective education and also sent her own offspring to one of the most expensive public schools in the country, an establishment way beyond the means of most people. Of course there will be those who accuse her of monstrous hypocrisy, and wonder… how on earth she can insist on imposing a one-size-fits-all comprehensive system on the rest of the country, and close down the opportunities of so many poor but bright kids, when she has so ruthlessly maximised the opportunities of her own children…

Then there will be those who complain that it is hypocritical of Polly to have her lovely second home in Italy, to which she doubtless repairs on so many cheapo flights that she has personally quilted the earth in a tea-cosy of CO2; to which I say, yes, it probably is wrong of Polly to keep calling for higher taxes when that would put such opportunities – for air travel to second homes – beyond the reach of millions slightly less fortunate than her. But never mind the hypocrisy: look at the fundamental Tory behaviour. At least she’s renting the villa out at pretty keen rates.”

More at Devil’s Kitchen, Tim Worstall and Factchecking Pollyanna.

Click to, um, enlarge. More. Have at it, burly chaps! (H/T, The Thin Man.)