“By the end of the 20th century, the humanities departments in universities had become closed enclaves. The writing of scholars in these disciplines had grown increasingly dense and jargon-filled, inaccessible to anyone without years of graduate study. For some academics, this enforced isolation became stifling. They sought new forms of expression. Thus literary theorists Wendy Steiner, Frank Lentricchia and Henry Louis Gates Jr. have turned to opera librettos, mystery novels and PBS documentaries.”