Gobbledygook

Monday, November 24, 2003  | 

The argument of my dissertation, informed by current thinking in feminist theory, queer theory, cultural materialism, eco-criticism, and postcolonial studies, centers on the paradoxes of representation involving masculine authority and feminine desire in eighteenth-century pirate literature, and especially on sentimentalism as a response to the en(gender)ing of the patriarchal body -- which I see as epistemologically equivalent to the "body politic" in eighteenth-century political discourse -- in the figure of the (male) sailor in British oceanic commerce during the first age of imperial expansion.

Sometimes satire hits a bit too close to home. This mock-application letter by Manfred Mickleson would be even funnier if it weren't so damn depressing. [via Invisible Adjunct]