Two Northeastern professors known for presenting complex thoughts in lucid packages have some answers. Unlike some of their peers, these academics are trying to communicate rather than impress. They recognize that if you can't express a thought clearly, you might not have one. Knowledge may be expanding in this Information Age, but it's coming in increasingly abstruse forms.
Much academic writing is beyond parody, as a recent hoax revealed.
This devastating imitation of jargon-ridden cultural studies was published in the highly regarded journal Social Text. The editors didn't get the joke. Earlier, the respected literary quarterly Raritan knowingly published a parody alongside a serious scholarly essay. Neither is comprehensible. Of course, academics aren't the only people who wrap themselves in cocoons of confusion.