Rating: 
Summary: The Damage of Political Correctness
Review: "Literature Lost" is timely and important book that explains the influence of political correctness on campus and its degrading effect on academia for student, professor and administrator alike. Yet this is less a discussion on the environment of today's campuses, and more on how things got to be this way. Ellis specifically focuses on literary criticism, and modern Marxist attempts to reduce everything to a political/power argument whether the author intended such an interpretation or not. Meanwhile, examination of "art for art's sake" and of the questions that such literature was written to reveal takes a back seat. Whole careers seem to be built on this very skewed view of literature, and Ellis is even more worried that the prevailing PC dogmas of oppression, sexism, racism, etc. will fade only to be replaced by yet another intellectual fad. Sometimes Ellis's writing is a bit dense, but if the reader sticks with Ellis's arguments, he or she will find "Literature Lost" to be an interesting and illuminating work.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the effort
Review: "Literature Lost" is timely and important book that explains the influence of political correctness on campus and its degrading effect on academia for student, professor and administrator alike. Yet this is less a discussion on the environment of today's campuses, and more on how things got to be this way. Ellis specifically focuses on literary criticism, and modern Marxist attempts to reduce everything to a political/power argument whether the author intended such an interpretation or not. Meanwhile, examination of "art for art's sake" and of the questions that such literature was written to reveal takes a back seat. Whole careers seem to be built on this very skewed view of literature, and Ellis is even more worried that the prevailing PC dogmas of oppression, sexism, racism, etc. will fade only to be replaced by yet another intellectual fad. Sometimes Ellis's writing is a bit dense, but if the reader sticks with Ellis's arguments, he or she will find "Literature Lost" to be an interesting and illuminating work.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but ultimately very sad
Review: ...After reading 'Literature Lost', I have found fresh ammunition for logically debating and disseminating the host of anti-intellectual literary "theories" and critiques concerning contemporary studies of the Humanities. Ellis book lays in conjunction a host of well-balanced perspectives and rebuttals into a systematic outline for understanding what exactly the problem pertains to.
The Amazon review already discusses the example of Tacitus, setting the tone for the mentality of the Race-Gender-Class critics and how their viewpoints are nothing new or original. As a complementary point to this, Ellis explains that questioning the Enlightenment and Western Culture by it's critics is a unique trait of the Enlightenment itself, since previous cultures never questioned the validity of the social, cultural, religious or class status in their own cultures. So the irony behind what the Race-Gender-Class critics think they are doing as unique is in fact a part of Western Civilization and the Enlightenment.
The same goes for the next point concerning the supposed "racism" that Race critics cry as isolated to Western Culture. This is true in the respect that "racism" was never questioned until the Enlightenment came along to challenge the notion of racial tribalism that historically pitted members of one racial community against another. When the Enlightenment came along it stressed the virtue of getting along with others for their ideas and achievements, and the result created the ideas that "racism" is itself immoral. The "Race" chapter also throws a little venom at the Post-colonial extremist Edward Said, targeting his hypocrisy of pretending to be a champion for values against racism but spits at the originators of the notion for supposed infractions of "Orientalism" and hegemony; a bogus notion undoubtedly.
Ellis reserves the bulk of the personal critique on Frederic Jameson-a lover of Marxism (this will come as no surprise as we will see later) who blindly and continuously espouses Marxist theory as a viable perception of literature and economics. Jameson deserves particular wrath by espousing these views in the face of the mounting evidence of against Marxism and the evils resulted, which Ellis expounds upon in detail.
'Literature Lost' doesn't preserve itself solely to de-bunking illegitimate literary theories but also to more effective methods of assessing literary studies; his utilization of quasi-scientific reasoning and logic for uncovering the meanings behind a literary work seem particularly intriguing, as well as the endorsement of Leo Spitzer's work "Linguistics and Literary History".
The second to last chapter "Is theory to Blame?" discusses yet another problem reaching both in and out of literary studies: revisionist history. Ellis provides the factors behind the recent trends of revisionist history, trends pertaining to either careless documentation (or lack thereof) of the facts, or the malicious manipulation and changing of the facts by the critics with both overt and covert political agendas. The perspectives offered here are causes for concern considering people like Said and Jameson have thousands of followers in academic departments spewing these theories of race and class oppression...
Rating:
Summary: Against oppressive, hegemonic, coercive pomo junkies!
Review: As a graduate student of literature, I found Mr. Ellis's book very intelligent, informative, and helpful. He exposes the illogical thoughts of many race-gender-class critics, including those of the ones we are taught to adore in postmodern theory-oriented classes (Foucault, Jameson, Derrida, etc.). He reminds us that, although politics is a genuine concern for research in literature, it is by no means the only one of importance. Ellis also shows us how affirmative action is harmful to society because it teaches people to have pride in their race before their individuality. He explains that racial pride has led to violent consequences in the past (as with Hitler and Germany). A point Ellis raises about research that is important for all students in academic fields is that pomo critics often go into a piece of literature looking for specific things to "prove" their agenda, and that this is not true research. In real academic research, the goal is to dig deeply and find out if your assumptions are true and/or logical. Unfortunately, the goal for race-gender-class scholars is to find literature to apply their theories to. This behavior does not demonstrate a love of literature, but sadly, it has permeated classrooms all over the country. This book is a must-read for students who are ready for the postmodern cloud to pass. The irony in postmodernism is that the critics, themselves, are creating a hegemonic society in literature departments around the US by insisting upon tunnel vision views of the West and literature and excluding those who don't agree (via ad hominem). They force broader-minded people who don't think the West is such a bad place out of the academy. This book is a defense of those individuals, as well. Ellis's jargon-free text is a useful book for students and teachers alike. I highly recommend it to all!
Rating:
Summary: Against oppressive, hegemonic, coercive pomo junkies!
Review: As a graduate student of literature, I found Mr. Ellis's book very intelligent, informative, and helpful. He exposes the illogical thoughts of many race-gender-class critics, including those of the ones we are taught to adore in postmodern theory-oriented classes (Foucault, Jameson, Derrida, etc.). He reminds us that, although politics is a genuine concern for research in literature, it is by no means the only one of importance. Ellis also shows us how affirmative action is harmful to society because it teaches people to have pride in their race before their individuality. He explains that racial pride has led to violent consequences in the past (as with Hitler and Germany). A point Ellis raises about research that is important for all students in academic fields is that pomo critics often go into a piece of literature looking for specific things to "prove" their agenda, and that this is not true research. In real academic research, the goal is to dig deeply and find out if your assumptions are true and/or logical. Unfortunately, the goal for race-gender-class scholars is to find literature to apply their theories to. This behavior does not demonstrate a love of literature, but sadly, it has permeated classrooms all over the country. This book is a must-read for students who are ready for the postmodern cloud to pass. The irony in postmodernism is that the critics, themselves, are creating a hegemonic society in literature departments around the US by insisting upon tunnel vision views of the West and literature and excluding those who don't agree (via ad hominem). They force broader-minded people who don't think the West is such a bad place out of the academy. This book is a defense of those individuals, as well. Ellis's jargon-free text is a useful book for students and teachers alike. I highly recommend it to all!
Rating:
Summary: readable and crucial book
Review: Continuing the work begun by Roger Kimball's "Tenured Radicals," Ellis's book explains how deconstruction and polticically-motivated theorists have ruined the study of literature. Ellis's work is highly intelligent and surprisingly readable. Aside from Kimball's work, it may be the best book on what's happened to the Humanities. One thing is clear: if you love literature, don't pursue it at university!
Rating:
Summary: readable and crucial book
Review: Continuing the work begun by Roger Kimball's "Tenured Radicals," Ellis's book explains how deconstruction and polticically-motivated theorists have ruined the study of literature. Ellis's work is highly intelligent and surprisingly readable. Aside from Kimball's work, it may be the best book on what's happened to the Humanities. One thing is clear: if you love literature, don't pursue it at university!
Rating: 
Summary: An Ironically Problematic Reading of "Postmodernity"
Review: Ellis' basic arguments are extremely shallow and often fail to engage with most of his opponents' claims. He starts out on the wrong foot when he assumes that there is a unified body of thought known as "postmodernism" or "cultural studies." This is pretty problematic because many of the authors and theories that he uses interchangably have distinct (and often conflicting) approaches that Ellis just doesn't account for. Sorry, but grouping Lyotard, Foucault, Derrida, the *entirety* of people who call themselves "Feminists," critical race theorists, Marxists, and many others borders on ridiculous. The best part of the book, however, is how ironic it is. Ellis repeatedly talks about how dangerous it is to let political ideology affect your interpretation of events. Unfortunately, it's fairly obvious that his own analysis of cultural studies is animated by his political beliefs (it would be pretty difficult to argue that this isn't the case). The book seems like somewhat of a validation of the claims made by many cultural critics that politics shape academics. Can be quite amusing and offensive at various places (especially in his justification of Columbian genocide), but if you're looking for an academic engagement of the subject matter, look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Is This Dunciad Useful? Are The Responsibility Issues Fair?
Review: Ellis' knack for finding the locus of each author's major intellectual error is to be commended. However, there's the sense that this is the mere shooting of fish in a barrel. It is painfully obvious (to me at least--and isn't that what counts?) that a culture run by Gilles Deleuze would be no worse off than a culture run by Gilles De Rais. Sometimes reading a contemporary Dunciad is giving too much time and attention to the figures lampooned.
There also are problems within Ellis' approach. The linking of formal logic with Humanistic ideals about character and art isn't particularly organic. As in the work of Roger Shattuck, the reliance on formal logic as an epistemological ideal within certain contexts essentially denies figurative language, and the number of denials is much higher than three. Further, Ellis' summaries, criticisms and rejections of ideas for the most part seem unfair. He will describe an idea much in the same way that, say, a social scientist describes an article or book in a Literature Review. But whereas a Literature Review is a starting point for others' research, Ellis responds to his own summaries with rigorous logical inquiry. Usually this results in the dismissal of an opponent's idea. The risk of the straw man fallacy seems great, and the presence of the straw man fallacy is frequently evident: a lot of times he quite baldly dismisses ideas based on the way that he worded his summary of that idea. That seems to stack the deck in his favor.
The other great problem is the treatment of 'left wing' ideas compared to the treatment of 'right wing' ideas. The leftist bent of an idea, or the perceived leftist bent of an idea, doesn't quite indicate to Ellis that the followers of the idea are morally equivalent to those directly responsible for the Gulag. He comes awfully close, though. Conversely, I do not recall him addressing the fact that traditional German humanistic learning does not always dissuade you from following an Aryanist Nationalism led by a palpably non-Aryan leader, or running a 'Mental-Focus' Camp. Ellis does mention the dangerous 'volk theory' of Herder, but that seems to function as an underhanded nudge of the reader toward 'ordinary German' theories of the atrocities' agencies. The argumentative 'out' implied is that those Humanities PhDs were simply being 'illogical,' but that doesn't seem fair given the cold eye given to the opposition, and the linking of logic and the Humanities at this point seems more convenient than anything else.
That said, if you, like me, find that anything removed from practical criticism tends to devolve into mere Jedi Mind Tricks and intellectual finger exercises, simply return to practical criticism. Really, we will find no Culture War Battlefields in the furture, nor will we have societies tht re-create the major battles in the Cuture War. To Ellis' credit, his intentions are noble. And the practical criticism of Ellis and his kind is excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Lost? He didn't find it...
Review: I ordered this book a few days ago, and perhaps I was misslead by the title. The title should read "How to be cultural bigot" I could not believe the out-right lies and ignorance displayed in this book. The last time I read such garbage was when I studied Dur Fuer by Adolf Hitler. I don't know what the author is really trying to do, but it seems to me he should know much much better. Its really sad this book got so great reviews from the majority of people. He just attacks every other "alternative" view of race, sex, and politics. All in favour of traditional western thought and culture. Why did he write this, I have no idea. When I finish reading books I usually donate them to the library, this is the first book out of hundreds I have read that I will not donate because I would not like this "junk" to go any further. It will be burned in my fire place along with any neo-nazi rally flyers I can find.
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