It's academic humble-brag. "I wish I had spent my teenage years reading about queer domesticities in Edwardian England or Pan-Africanism" is just him saying, "

It's academic humble-brag. "I wish I had spent my teenage years reading about queer domesticities in Edwardian England or Pan-Africanism" is just him saying, "I now read about queer domesticities in Edwardian England or Pan-Africanism, and that makes me a virtuous person."