Hirstian

But, secondly, such problems also affect any uncritical acceptance of a general Hirstian conception of the school curriculum as a set of relatively discrete disciplines—since it is clear from relatively recent educational history that this is not the only available curriculum conception.

Wotton explicitly lampoons conceptual art, but implicitly it is a Hirstian vision of sex and decay which runs throughout the novel and which informs a series of moments where the flesh is emphasised.