"The final phase of criticism’s arc began with the rise of a figure that Roger Kimball memorably described as the 'tenured radical'..."

"... and which we might think of as the Scholar-Activist. For her [sic], the proper task of criticism was to participate in social transformations occurring outside the university. The battle against exploitation, she claimed, could be waged by writing about racism, sexism, homophobia, and colonialism, using an increasingly refined language of historical context, identity, and power. Literary artifacts (poems, novels, and other playthings of the élite) could be replaced as objects of study by pop-culture ones (Taylor Swift, selfies, and other playthings of the masses)...." 

Writes Merve Emre, in "Has Academia Ruined Literary Criticism? Literature departments seem to provide a haven for studying books, but they may have painted themselves into a corner," (The New Yorker).