Exile in Lit-ville

Though it would be nice to chalk this up as a temporary symptom of finals-time angst, I'm not sure this isn't a more permanent development: I find, as I'm scanning the James Joyce Quarterly's bibliography of works, that I don't get the rush of nerdalicious joy that once I did. Maybe I'm getting jaded? Maybe I've accepted the fact that particularly esoteric fields and areas of theory don't appeal, mostly because there's no practical application in the nine-to-five world? I used feel a thrill when I would read article titles like, “Moses, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Moses Joyce: The Blooming Jew’s Advice to Stephen Dedalus”! Oh, those clever postmodernist scholars! What will they think of next! All those puns abounding...

But now? I hardly know myself -- all I want is an article whose title includes the words "Dubliners" and "materialism". The lack of such an article (one exists, somewhere in the ether, but strangely enough it can't be located by hook or by crook) seems to have brought on a sore throat, general lethargy, and a distaste for the world at large and academia in particular. It may also be responsible for the death of the poor little hibiscus tree on the fourth floor of O'Neill, but nothing has yet been proven. It's too bad; I really liked that tree.