Terry Eagleton is out with a new edition of his 1991 book Ideology: An Introduction, and it could make for some cringingly awkward moments around the University of Manchester campus.

In the introduction to the new edition, Eagleton, a literary theorist at the University of Manchester, goes after his colleague Martin Amis "and his ilk" for their views of the threat posed by Islamism. Although he does not come out and call Amis, a professor of creative writing, a racist, Eagleton does say that his views on these matters are similar to those of a "British National Party thug." Harsh words, but there is worse to come. Eagelton then turns his critical gaze to Martin's father, the late novelist Kingsley Amis, declaring him  "a racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, self-hating reviler of women, gays and liberals." Eagleton continues, "Amis fils has clearly learnt more from him than how to turn a shapely phrase."

What should Amis do? "If the most authoritative political voice on campus labels a colleague (albeit on the rhetorical rebound) a bigot and a racist, is that colleague's position tenable?" asks John Sutherland, an emeritus professor of English at University College London. "Can Amis, with Eagleton's taunts bouncing off the classroom wall, competently teach classes in which there will be Muslims, Jews, gays and women?"

Not surprisingly, Amis is not keeping silent. In a letter to The Independent (scroll down) Amis notes, "It is a dull business, correcting Eagleton's distortions, but this is the work he is obliging me to do." And so he does. "People like Eagleton are the nearest thing we have to the 'iron mullahs': he is, in other words, a deluded flailer and stirrer," Amis writes.

(Last year Jeffrey J. Williams took stock of Eagleton's career in The Chronicle Review.)