*/

Just to cheer us up on the grounds that being mean is fun and anyway the waning of the humanities might possibly make it harder to be this kind of academic than in days gone by.....

Jacob Taubes, struck his colleagues as too self-important, and so they invented a “medieval scholastic, whose thinking constituted an interesting hybrid of the Thomistic and Scotistic schools.” Taubes took the bait.

After the first exchange of views, during which Taubes had listened without commenting, as if he were thoroughly acquainted with the subject, he spoke brilliantly about Bertram of Hildesheim’s psychology and astonished those present with his profound and comprehensive knowledge—until he was informed that no such person existed; he’d been invented for the purposes of this discussion.

“He was an awful, gnomish little man,” said Amiran of the victim. Many were repelled by the squat, chinless Taubes.