A good account of ethical nihilism (in Nietzsche's sense of the devaluation of our highest values) in the academy (eg.,the postmodern English Department) can be found in some posts on Erin O'Connor's Critical Mass back in 2002.

There is an extended discussion over several posts on the role of politicized postmodernism in corrupting the field of professional literary study, on the English department as a model postmodern community, and the politicized postmodernism of the English department.

The relevant links are:

Some choice outtakes from Jonah [Goldberg]
In my July 10 blog
This is Part Two of
This is Part Three of
This is Part Four of
This is the final installment

It is well worth reading, as it exmplifies the argument made by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue about the failure of Enlightenment's ethical project to create a rational ethics that would accepted by any rational being no matter where or when they lived.

What Erin O'Conner describes is the living in the aftermath of that collapse.