"It was our dream to get Homi Bhabha, said Henry Louis Gates Jr., chairman of the Afro-American studies department, where Mr. Bhabha will begin teaching in the spring. Reaction in the English department, where Mr. Bhabha will be spending the bulk of his time, was just as enthusiastic. He's manifestly one of the most distinguished cultural theorists of the postcolonial and diasporic experience in the world, said Lawrence Buell, the department chairman. Elsewhere, however, news of the appointment, which was first announced a year ago, provoked less jubilation than disbelief. When I heard that, I was dismayed, said Marjorie Perloff, an emeritus professor of English at Stanford University. For Harvard to be thrilled to be hiring Homi Bhabha -- he doesn't have anything to say.... One could finally argue that there is no there there, beyond the neologisms and latinate buzzwords, said Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University. Most of the time I don't know what he's talking about."