Lectures as Communicative events

There are lectures as 'communicative' events and lectures as lectures. The latter very badly reminds me of the 'art for art sake' ideology which can even be more harmful if applied to social studies academia.

I have always had the uneasy feeling when academic people are accused of just discussing things that they only know of. This is also supported by what is called as academic discourse which is a (the?!) dominating feature of academic journals.

Well, I certainly don’t deny that such thing is not all together merely there to cause distance (which is not even a bad thing per se according to Bourdieu when asked why his discourse is so hard to follow while he criticizes academic discourse for creating a haven). However, I feel very sheepish when there is too much of academic formalities in the air.

There is something about the style of presenting an argument or lecture which can make it more interesting, more fruitful and more rewarding, what I would call being more committed to contextualising the lecture and having internal conversation with audience. I simply see that some people are good at that and some are not.