Social Text, Sokal--A Modest Question

[Murthy Yenamandra]

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 :-).

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 ..."