The annual meeting of the MLA has long been known (and frequently satirized) for the sexual puns and imagery of paper titles [...] As the MLA meeting concluded on Tuesday, however, one session sought to put sex at academic conferences center stage. Drawing on literature, theory and experience, panelists considered not only the role of sex at conferences, but talked about identity, love and (perhaps more timely to many MLA attendees) the dismal academic job market.

*Warning: The article talks about casual sex between academics, which might be inappropriate for children and those with strong mental imagery.

The panel goes on to analyze and categorize the phenomenon of the conference hook-up, specifically at the MLA conference. The whole thing is by turns surreal and strangely appropriate, given academia’s semi-cloistered environment and narcissistic tendencies. Also, (thinking of most of my professors) it’s pretty gross.

On the upside, the panel reported monogamous relations at the conference were on the rise. Take heart, potential suitors; those lone wolves of academia might be tamed yet!

Before the session began, members of the MLA Radical Caucus handed out a statement protesting the organization’s decision to invite Mr. Horowitz to speak. Mr. Horowitz “consistently misrepresents the views of academics whom he wishes to discredit,” the caucus said. “He is not a scholar but a liar of the Goebbels school.”

Ah, but of course. How perfectly reasonable to compare an outspoken critic of academia to the propoganda minister of Nazi Germany. (In Internet land, this is known as Godwin’s Law.) I would expect no less from the “radical caucus,” though. The rest of the article is just as amusing because the “scholars” attacking Horowitz come off as the real partisan hacks. To wit: name-calling, shouting, general rudeness, etc. In fact, they come off like the self-righteous college kids they teach. Coincidence?