DIED. Allan Bloom, 62, conservative critic of higher education; of peptic-ulcer bleeding; in Chicago. Obscure until 1987, Bloom burst into the world of pop polemics with The Closing of the American Mind, a book whose defense of traditional academic standards made Bloom a darling of the Reagan era--and sold over a million copies. Bloom once compared his sudden celebrity status with that of "rock stars"--ironically one of his many targets.