A friend of the blog responded with this in an email:

This is an interesting take on the insularity of French intellectualism and French cultural ideology. Would like to hear more about this.

But after speaking about European intellectualism with such specificity, its unfortunate how he then goes and paints “Third World” intellectualism with such a broad stroke. His generalizations of “Third World” intellectualism follow some well worn paths of Europeans bemoaning the “mimicry” of European culture by citizens of the colonial/post-colonial world. He also seems to be saying that people of the “Third World” can’t be afforded the luxury to be  foucauldians or comparative literary scholars because they need to take up The Struggle!

After all, Edward Said was a comparative literary scholar. His work has mattered pretty profoundly.