One of life's mysteries:

In my (lengthy, distinguished) university career, the word 'narrative' abounded. "When you engage with this material," Jimmy would say, waving his hands around, "you're becoming part of the neo-liberal narrative."

Now that I'm doing a creative writing course, the word hasn't been mentioned once.

Other words that have been conspicuous in their absense: paradigm, dialectic, modernity, discourses, neo-anything.

This is a Good Thing.

/me does the non-academic happydance.