Academic Barbarism Reconsidered—A Comparative Study of Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin and Qian Zhongshu’s Fortress Besieged

Abstract

In Academic Barbarism, Michael O’Sullivan coins the eponymous term and analyzes its diverse manifestations. He believes that the notion is worthy of more attention both in academia and beyond. This essay examines Nabokov’s Pnin and Qian’s Fortress Besieged in light of Michel Henry’s theory of barbarism as suppression of life. The essay unfolds around three essential questions in academia that concern both authors: the intrusion of the power structure of society into academia; the rampant scientism in academia; and academics’ blind faith in pedagogy. I argue that, writing some sixty years ago, Nabokov and Qian were already aware of the multiple educational problems that beset academia, thus qualifying them as prophets of the academic barbarism that is looming large on the horizon of today’s higher education.