The Sokal hoax : the sham that shook the academy

In May 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in the fashionable academic journal __Social Text__. The essay quoted hip theorists like Jacques Lacan, Donna Haraway, and Gilles Deleuze. The prose was thick with the jargon of poststructuralism. And the point the essay tried to make was counterintuitive: gravity, Sokal argued, was a fiction that society had agreed upon, and science needed to be liberated from its ideological blinders. When Sokal revealed in the pages of __Lingua Franca__ that he had written the article as a parody, the story hit the front page of the __New York Times__. It set off a national debate still raging today: Are scholars in the humanities trapped in a jargon-ridden Wonderland? Are scientists deluded in thinking their work is objective? Are literature professors suffering from science envy? Was Sokal's joke funny? Was the Enlightenment such a bad thing after all? And isn't it a little bit true that the meaning of gravity is contingent upon your cultural perspective? Collected here for the first time are Sokal's original essay on "quantum gravity," his essay revealing the hoax, the newspaper articles that broke the story, and the angry op-eds, letters, and e-mail exchanges sparked by the hoax from intellectuals across the country, including Stanley Fish, George F. Will, Michael Bérubé, and Katha Pollitt. Also included are extended essays in which a wide range of scholars ponder the long-term lessons of the hoax. Transgressing The Boundaries : Toward A Transformative Hermeneutics Of Quantum Gravity / Alan Sokal -- Revelation : A Physicist Experiments With Cultural Studies / Alan Sokal -- Response : Mystery Science Theater / Bruce Robbins, Andrew Ross -- Selected Letters To The Editor -- Scientist Takes Academia For A Ridge With Parody / Linda Seebach -- Is It-gibberish Or Merely Obscure? : Scientist Hoaxes Academic Journal / Mitchell Landsberg -- Postmodern Gravity Deconstructed, Slyly / Janny Scott -- Hokum For High-brows / John Yemma -- Professor Sokal's Bad Joke / Stanley Eugene Fish -- When Pretension Reigns Supreme / Scott Mcconnell -- A Physics Prof. Drops A Bomb On The Faux Left / Ruth Rosen -- Smitten With Gibberish / George F. Will -- Hoax Article Yanks Academics' Legs / John Omicinski -- Pomolotov Cocktail, And Selected Responses / Katha Pollitt -- Another Dispatch From The Culture : Wars / James Terry -- Scholarly Article A Fine Hoax : Social Scientists Wore No Clothes --^ Illogical Dons Swallow Hoaxer's Leap Into Quantum Gibberish / Euan Ferguson -- Sokal's Prank / Roberto Campos -- Sokal, A Self-parodist / Olavo De Carvalho -- Academic Insult In Greenwich Village, And Selected Responses / Marco D'eramo -- When Clever Men Think Rubbish, Sound The Alarm Bells / A.n. Wilson -- Sokal Is No Socrates / Denis Duclos -- Is There Science After The Cold War? / Bruno Latour -- Why I Wrote My Parody / Alan Sokal -- My Sokaled Life; Or, Revenge Of The Nerds / Ellen Willis -- The Sokal Hoax / Michael Berube, Alan Sokal -- Sokal's Hoax, And Selected Responses / Steven Weinberg -- What The Sokal Hoax Ought To Teach Us, And Selected Responses / Paul Boghossian -- Was Sokal's Hoax Justified? / Kurt Gottfried -- The Sokal Affair Takes Transatlantic Turn / David Dickson -- Friendly Fire : The Hoaxing Of Social Text / Peter Osborne -- Alan Sokal's Transgression / Stanley Aronowitz -- The Science Wars In India / Meera Nanda --^ Postmodernism And The Left / Barbara Epstein -- Cultural Studies And Its Discontents : A Comment On The Sokal Affair / Ken Hirschkop -- Just Doing Your Job : Some Lessons Of The Sokal Affair / Bruce Robbins -- Reflections On The Sokal Affair / Andrew Ross -- A Plea For Reason, Evidence, And Logic / Alan Sokal. Edited By The Editors Of Lingua Franca. Includes Bibliographical References. In May 1996, physicist Alan Sokal published an essay that quoted hip theorists like Jacques Lacan, and Donna Haraway. When Sokal revealed that he had written the article as a parody, the story hit the front page of "The New York Times". This title features Sokal's essay on 'quantum gravity', and the newspaper articles that broke the story.