“The idea of the proper-name effect allegorizes the de-eroticization of normative value(s).”
Writer Amitava Kumar quotes this wonderfully characteristic academic sentence in his darkly comic essay, “Theory vs. Literature,” over at Bookslut. The sentence itself was produced by The Virtual Academic, a Web toy created under the auspices of the University of Chicago Writing Program. I encourage you all to give it a try.
Here are a few sentences TVA just generated for me (I’ve taken the liberty of adding a couple of transitions):
The invention of the natural carries with it the reading of De Man’s aesthetic ideology, which furthers the poetics of process that furnishes a provisional lens for the analysis of the public sphere. Surely the reification of consumption asks to be read as the discourse of the image—that illusion of desire which is virtually coextensive with the engendering of linguistic transparency.
Now I know how I can finally snag that Ph.D!
Joseph Hutchison, Colorado Poet Laureate 2014-2019, has published 20 collections of poems and edited or co-edited three poetry anthologies. He currently directs two master’s-level programs for University College at the University of Denver: Professional Creative Writing and Arts & Culture Management. Joe lives with his wife, Melody Madonna, in the mountains southwest of Denver, Colorado, the city where he was born. 
