Word: faddism
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...coiffeur nonpareil, was accidentally smothered to death in a brawling crowd. The famed 38 styles described in Legros's L'Art de la Coëffure des Dames Françoises had become de rigueur for all the best heads in Europe. But with the tastemaker gone, faddism has flourished-so much so that European ladies of fashion can now consult a 39-volume behemoth that illustrates no fewer than 3,774 current hair styles, many of them preposterous variations on the once decorous pompadour...
Another specimen of European faddism has recently caught on: a Persian rain and sun shield called the umbrella. Although many still regard it as a frivolous affectation, some physicians recommend it as an aid to ward off vertigoes, epilepsies, sore eyes and fevers, and several stores in Boston have started advertising umbrellas at prices ranging from 36 to 42 shillings...
Despite its apparent success, the popular-culture department is regarded with less than complete enthusiasm by many of Bowling Green's faculty members. Says pop cult Assistant Professor Michael Marsden: "There's still the suspicion that we're pandering to popular tastes and faddism." There may be some cause for this suspicion. Even its sup- porters admit that popular culture is not a well-understood discipline. One question on the final exam for the introduction-to-pop course this month asked, "How would you now explain to your parents what this popular-culture stuff is all about...
...Faddism or inarticulateness...
...cult, a following consisting mostly of the young and which can respond easily to his simple, mythic-symbolic prose. This is lamentable because Hesse's works, many of which lie on the borderline of acceptability, will not get the careful consideration they deserve in the wake of such superficial faddism. The twenty-three Stories of Five Decades (only three of them previously available in English) will certainly lend some more weight to the arguments both for and against Hesse. And assuming that Ralph Manheim's translation is tolerably faithful, these stories might even help clarify some of the underlying problems...