Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture by Alan Sokal

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A review by Michael Bérubé

In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal played an elaborate trick on some unsuspecting humanists and social scientists -- namely, the editors of the leftist journal Social Text -- by submitting an essay filled with at least six kinds of nonsense. The editors didn't catch (or were willing to countenance) the nonsense and published the essay. In response, humanists and social scientists embarrassed (or outraged) by Sokal's hoax lashed out, sometimes in ways that made them look even worse than the editors; and Sokal found himself hailed by legions of fans and supporters who credited him with finally exposing the vacuity of (a) cultural studies, (b) literary theory, (c) postmodernism, (d) obscurantist jargon, (e) science studies, (f) people who write about disciplines they don't know much about, and (g) all of the above. Over the past 12 years, accordingly, I've met a number of colleagues who spit and curse at the very sound of Sokal's name -- and a much larger number of colleagues, journalists and ...

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