h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... who failed to complete her PhD because she was utterly unable to write in or even comprehend the fashionable Lacanian 'syntax' favoured by her tutors, I declare Sokal is a hero because he let me see it wasn't me being stupid, it was them being ****wits.

Quite.

I was introduced to postmodernity in terms of, among other things, Leonard Cohen, by a polymath teacher who, crucially, knew how to communicate ideas. So I'm sure it can be done, and I don't believe increased depth necessitates wild excesses like those opening quotations.

I personally think that your story is disgraceful, Agapanthus. When I was doing my PhD I shared a flat with a guy who did an MPhil in critical theory. He was so disgusted at the end of it that he wrote a dissertation disavowing the whole discipline. He said his tutor was 'visibly shaken' when he handed it back to him and 'said he would not be recommending it for a distinction'.
I've tried to read Lacan and given up within a few paragraphs. It is complete, unadulterated bulls**t (to quote Gary Kamiya). And it seems to me that so many young eager academic talents end up being wasted in spending time having to unpick the intellectual tangles that charlatans like Lacan have woven to hide their profound lack of any meaningful insight.