Social Text, Sokal--A Modest Question

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

On Thu, 30 May 1996, Murthy Yenamandra wrote:

> In a previous message Paul L. Maliszewski writes:
> > Much of the talk I've heard about the Sokal article identifies it as a
> > parody or a satire, which terms mean of course two different things, but
> > the consensus seems to be that in some way it employed irony.  Which makes
> > me want to ask a pretty simple question:  Did anyone find it funny?  I'm
> > [..]
> 
> Surely irony in the sense that the goal of the article was something
> other than its literal meaning. It's funny in that the author considered
> it too ridiculous to get past the editors, but it did (on the other
> hand, he finds the whole field ridiculous, so it's to be expected).
> Everyone, including Sokal and the reporters, seems to find the words
> "hegemonic" and "counter-hegemonic" pretty funny, though :-).

This fact upsets me.  By virtue simply of the use of complex, highly 
meaning-full terms with which to articulate various dynamics of power 
(themselves so likely to slip by), we deride scholarly journals like 
_Social text_?  This is worse than ridiculous.

Bonnie

> > Murthy > > -- 
> Murthy Yenamandra, Dept of CompSci, U of Minnesota. Email: yenamand at cs.umn.edu
>    "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the
>     swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the
>     wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour  
>     to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all ..."
> 
>