July 19, 2002

Biography Explores Early Celebrity Academic, Counterculture Scholar, and Postmodern Theorist

By SCOTT McLEMEE

A BAD BOY (NAMED LESLIE): Long before the advent of cultural studies, queer theory, disability scholarship, or the phenomenon of the celebrity academic, there was Leslie Fiedler. A scandalous interpreter of American literature and an all-around intellectual wild man, he was also a frequent guest on The Merv Griffin Show during the 1960s. When his book Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self (1978) reached the best-seller lists, Mr. Fiedler even turned up on Donahue, accompanied by a pair