Par for the course in the field of 'Communications Studies', I'm afraid. One of our Comm. Studies faculty wrote a 250 page thesis on 'A Different World', a spinoff sitcom from the Cosby show. Hard to believe this passes for scholarship. This same faculty member writes largely illiterate columns on 'racial issues' for the local lefty fish-wrap. Apparently, sentences with a subject and verb are oppressive, or something.
A few years back I came up with 'Harbison's laws of academe'. I don't remeber them all, but a couple were
Things have gotten so much worse recently, I'm considering replacing 'major' by 'professor' in rule 2.
Exactly what we'd expect from an oppressive, phallocentric, man of "science" such as you, privileging the European male experience over other equally valid narratives as you do, don't you? Admit it, sexist, capitalist, pig-dog ;)
It's not grammar that's oppressive - well, it is, if you've seen anything from the MLA over the last twenty years - but rather plain facts that are oppressive, I think. The world is not how a certain segment of academia wishes it to be, so they must wish away some of its more inconvenient aspects.
Ah, well. I think it was Plato who remarked at what an awful lot of money the Sophists seemed to be making back in the day - plus ça change, right? ;)