Wild Orchids and Trotsky: 2messages from American Universities

This book presents a unique and highly readable contribution to current debates about the crisis of authority in American universities. Several professors whose work has come under attack recently from the right respond through essays and interviews. In revealing their intellectual biographies, Edmundson humanizes figures and philosophies that have been caricatured and demonized. The strongest statements come from Harold Bloom and Edward Said. Said speaks of the arrogance of scholars on the right and on the left who believe they have the power to intervene in and affect the supposed revolutions going on in the academy. Bloom, with delightful eccentricity, skewers both sides as he holds up regard for aesthetic beauty of texts over what he calls the School of Resentment's reliance on theory. Richard Rorty and Judith Frank present poignant contributions, Rorty through a telling of his childhood passions for both social justice and pure beauty, Frank speaking of how her experience of breast cancer pervades her academic work. Though some pieces deteriorate into trivial matters, these reflections, in general, are a valuable addition to a surprisingly resilient public discussion. Edmundson's introduction provides helpful context. He is a professor of English at the University of Virginia. (Feb.)