There's a trend in academic writing, particularly in the humanities, where the author is clearly putting all of their effort into positioning themselves in a "f

There's a trend in academic writing, particularly in the humanities, where the author is clearly putting all of their effort into positioning themselves in a "field", relative to other "fields". I get a few paragraphs into these articles and then realize, "ah. This wasn't written for me, the reader. This was written by the author for the author." I've made the mistake of buying some books like this, from academic presses, and have been bored and disappointed. I think I know what this particular essay is written in response to. A while back, I recall a few essays about the figure of the flaneur. They were written to problematize this activity, to emphasize the privilege of the flaneur, who expects to be able to go anywhere in the city without fear of harassment either by so-called "criminals" (whose expropriation of the flaneur's wealth may actually be just), or by the police who terrorize the marginalized communities on which the flaneur sets his gaze (and it is always a he -- spit). (Obviously I am parodying these essays just a little in my last paragraph, but not very much.) So this essay, by contrast, is seeking to rehabilitate the figure of the flaneur. Basically, because the author is trying to carve out a niche for themselves in academia, and in this niche they want to be able to identify with the flaneur without the moral opprobrium that's used within academia to take out competitors. To say it again, they're just scared, looking for a niche, and engaging in some mimicry of the behavior they see around them. So I sympathize a little. It's kind of a dumb game with small prizes, but if you've lived in academia all your life and that's all you know, then that's what you're going to do, just as surely as, if you've never known anything but a holler in West Virginia, you look for a job in the coal mine.