{"product_id":"the-sokal-hoax-the-sham-that-shook-the-academy","title":"The Sokal Hoax: The Sham That Shook the Academy","description":"\u003cp\u003eISBN: 9780803279957\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBison Books, September 2000\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e271 pages, Paperback\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn May 1996 physicist Alan Sokal published an essay in the fashionable academic journal \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eSocial Text\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. 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.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen Sokal revealed in the pages of \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eLingua Franca\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e that he had written the article as a parody, the story hit the front page of the \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-italic\"\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e. 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?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCollected 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.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"I H Pentz Booksellers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47187604308130,"sku":null,"price":100.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0364\/4047\/3732\/files\/A1BF-IRkLpL._SY522.jpg?v=1776761992","url":"https:\/\/pentzbooks.co.za\/products\/the-sokal-hoax-the-sham-that-shook-the-academy","provider":"I H Pentz Booksellers","version":"1.0","type":"link"}