cover image QUICK STUDIES: The Best of Lingua Franca

QUICK STUDIES: The Best of Lingua Franca

, . . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $15 (544pp) ISBN 978-0-374-52863-8

Lingua Franca chronicled the strange and boisterous controversies in academia—from a feminist professor accused of sexual harassment to the debate over which crustacean the "pair of ragged claws" belonged to in T.S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"—throughout the 1990s, steering a narrow course between theory-loving academics and the journalists and pundits who revile them. Although it folded in last year's economic tumult, the consistently crisp, thoughtful, lively writing in these 40 pieces is hardly that of a fly-by-night publication. Selected by long-time LF editor Star, the reportage, essays and profiles include a poignant account of novelist Milan Kundera's fallings-out with his translators as he struggled hopelessly to find the perfect English translations of his work; a profile of Xanax-popping prankster Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian philosopher who once slipped subversive messages into Communist propaganda; and a stinging self-denunciation by a former literary theorist who has turned against jargon-laden academic criticism. Other subjects include the Yale graduate student strike; Yugoslavian Marxist dissidents who became committed to Serbian nationalism; and primatologists' blinding love of bonobo chimps. Full of memorable characters and colorful conflicts, the pieces do justice to the complexity of the intellectual and social questions at stake. In his introduction, Star notes that in spite of the awards and accolades the magazine received, its circulation remained relatively small. That means there are a lot of people who missed these pieces the first time around. They're in for a treat. (Sept.)

Forecast: Anthologies aren't usually big sellers, and, sadly, there's little to suggest this one will be any different, given Lingua Franca's small circulation. Still, higher-brow media people and academics of all stripes will probably seek it out.