The thing is, I don't think that any amount of study lets you understand lit crit. It just lets you produce it and nod in agreement at other regurgitations.
I don't understand a lot of high-level physics or Continental Philosophy, but the same process that leads me to believe that the physicists aren't sitting around BSing all day leads me to believe that the philosophers are.
(Which is to say, I read enough intro surface level articles that are supposed to give a hint of what you get into once you do begin to understand and talk to people about the same, and form an outsider's opinion. Same process, different results with the two fields.)
There is an easy test to see if a subject has inherent meaning or not. Just submit a randomly constructed article to the related journal and see if they publish it.
Sokal punked a minor journal that was not particularly well known in the field. His book with Bricmont, attacking "postmodernism", on the other hand, was published by a major publisher, even though large swaths of it had been thoroughly debunked.
No, I was talking about a more personal connection. In the publish or perish environment it's easy to submit gibberish that sounds reasonable just to get another paper out there.
