The Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital
I leave you with a letter I sent to Mimi Smartypants after reading the schedule for a James Joyce conference to which she linked:
Dear Madam:
I happened to notice that one of the lectures at the Joyce Conference is "The Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital" by Rhoda Zabargian. Rhoda Zabargian?! I was talking about the freaking Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital when Rhoda Zabargian was running around in her freaking kneepants wiping her nose and flunking kindergarten. I was giving lectures on the Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital in my freaking sleep when Rhoda Zabargian was boinking her professors to try and keep a 'C' average! I was wiping my ass with papers on the goddamn freaking Bildungsroman as Cultural freaking Capital when Rhoda "don't know much about the Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital" Zabargian was copying her thesis verbatim from Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital for Dummies, which incidentally I wrote!
That said, you may rest assured that in no way is my opinion of Rhoda Zabargian and her "knowledge" of the Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital affected by the fact that she left me at the altar and ran off to Burning Man with a pole-sitting Gypsy, but not before shouting loudly about some of my very private medical problems in front of the assembled guests, including several highly regarded Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital scholars; or that, ever since, I have abandoned my position as the Rhoda Zabargian Distinguished Chair of Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital Studies at Yale to devote as much time as possible to maintaining the magnificent gothic shrine to the memory of our lost love that I have painstakingly constructed out of 400+ lbs. of cured cold-cuts in my apartment. Rhoda, please come back! I didn't mean it. You're the genius of Bildungsroman as Cultural Capital—I'm just a worthless hack. I wouldn't know a Bildungsroman from a hole in the ground. Rhoda? Please, I'm sorry...
