November 3, 1996 to January 16, 1997
Jorge Buescu, jbuescu@math.ist.utl.pt, visited on Sunday,
November 03, 1996:
Message:
Superb. This is what the Net is all about.
[Lisbon, Portugal]
Web Page: http://
William Banks, wbanks@pomona.edu, visited on Sunday, November
03, 1996:
Message:
I only just now read Fish's response from the op-ed
page of the NY Times. Fish makes one claim that
is wrong and irritating. This is the claim that the
literary critics of science that Sokal is attacking
are themselves "sociologists" of science. I'm afraid
Fish either does not know the literature of sociology
of science or else he is trying to use their credibility
as a support for his own position.
In fact, sociology of science does help us understand
the scientific enterprise in a way that is beyond
the imagination of most of the literary critics of
science.
I don't know whether Fish's use of the term
"sociology of science" reflects ignorance or
dishonesty.
Bill Banks
[Claremont, United States]
Web Page: http://
Mr. Andrea Lawendel, lawendel@micronet.it, visited on Wednesday,
November 06, 1996:
Message:
I first read about Sokal's prank on the Italian
edition of the Ney York Reviews of Book, in an
article by Steven Weinberg. It was very thought-
provoking and your site goes beyond any
expectation of stimulating reading. Thanks.
[Milan, Italy]
Web Page: http://
richard w. hadden, rhadden@shark.stmarys.ca, visited on Sunday, November 10, 1996:
Message:
Well done! Everyone's (my rationalist interlocutors)claiming victory without having read the material. Very interesting. Now, I shall at least have some grist for the mill. Thanks.
[halifax,nova scotia, Canada]
Web Page: http://www.stmarys.ca/academic/arts/sociology
Paul Wise, paulji@campus.mci.net, visited on Tuesday, November
12, 1996:
Message:
Students and professors of English Literature should be grateful to Professor Sokal for finally exposing the sham that graduate students and English departments have had to labor under for almost two decades. I feel Alan Sokal speaks for me just li
ke I felt Bob Dylan did in the 60s when he was writing his songs of protest. "The Emperor's New Clothes" is certainly a fitting analogy for what Sokal has done. I predict that Sokal's article will be a turning point in literary criticism. No longer wil
l smug professors be able to require and deliver such nonsensical convoluted jargon which says little or nothing passed of as profound literary statement and go unchallenged. Soakal's real triumph was to write an essay that said less than nothing and get
it published. The publishing of his article shows just how much editors and critics are paying to content. One could describe a pig sty using using the same convoluted, vacuous lit crit speak and it could be published as major criticism. I am sure tha
t I will no longer have to endure the kind of smug atmosphere that surrounds literary criticism.
[Atlanta, United States]
Web Page: http://
Hans Wienen, wienen@th.rug.nl, visited on Wednesday, November
13, 1996:
Message:
[Groningen, Netherlands]
Web Page: http://
William Davis, wdavis@cc.colorado.edu, visited on Wednesday,
November 13, 1996:
Message:
[Colorado Springs, United States]
Web Page: http://
William Davis, wdavis@cc.colorado.edu, visited on Wednesday,
November 13, 1996:
Message:
You have put together a great resource for
examining the Sokal affair. I can see why many
are so gleeful at Sokal's "exposure" of postmodernism.
It amazes me, however, to see what people who
loath postmodernism conclude that Sokal's prank
actually proves. This one spoof somehow debunks
any idea that has every been loosely associated
with "postmodernism"? In attacking vagueness
and obfuscation, many are relying simply on
stereotype and gross generalization. Is this
knee-jerk demonizing what is required to defend
objectivity and science?
t
[Colorado Springs, United States]
Web Page: http://
Trinity University First Year Seminar Class, bhummel@trimity.edu, visited on Thursday, November 14, 1996:
Message:
Looking for information on the Sokalpaper. Trying to better understand what is going on between the academic disiplines of "humanities" and "sciences". What is a definition of Deconstructuralism? November 14 1996
[San Antonio Texas, United States]
Web Page: http://www.trinity.edu/
Robert Stacy McCain, , visited on Thursday, November 14,
1996:
Message:
Greetings from the Third Military District, Occupied C.S.A.
I bumped into this Sokal page (I was already familiar with the matter or non-matter at hand) while digging for stuff on Dr. Fish.
You see, Dr. Fish is associated with Duke University Press, which recently published "Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness" by Jane Lazarre, an action for which someone should be -- ahem -- held accountable.
The perception-as-reality motif in Ms. Lazarre's work involves impugning Gen. Robert E. Lee as a brutal slave-driver.
As a Southern gentleman, my code of honor prevents my expressing my thoughts upon Ms. Lazarre, her life and her works. Perhaps suggesting AKC registry would be the extent of what might be politely said about this woman.
At any rate, to see Dr. Fish -- the carpetbagger as proponent of "multiculturalism" is nothing new, you know -- hoisted by his own petard did wonders for this old boy's unreconstructed heart.
My best wishes to Dr. Sokal and other adherents to the embattled standard of Western civilization, as I am sincerely,
Robert Stacy McCain
(home e-mail: rstacy2229@aol.com)
[, United States]
Web Page: http://
Jerry Gough, gough@wsu.edu, visited on Monday, November
18, 1996:
Message:
[, United States]
Web Page: http://
Matt, mboerger@trinity.edu, visited on Monday, November
18, 1996:
Message:
[San Antonio, United States]
Web Page: http://
Karen Engel, kse@unx.berkeley.edu, visited on Wednesday,
November 20, 1996:
Message:
Sokal is So kool. Boy did he bite 'em. For further university satire, I recommend "Rebel Angels" by Robertson Davies.
[Berkeley, United States]
Web Page: http://
Ned Block, nb21@is5.nyu.edu, visited on Thursday, November
21, 1996:
Message:
[New York, United States]
Web Page: http://
Mark Alexander, mark_alex@earthlink.net, visited on Sunday, November 24, 1996:
Message:
Check out The Underground Grammarian website. It is right up your alley.
[, United States]
Web Page: http://members.aol.com/hu4wahz/ug/index.html
Michael V. Tulloch Sr., mtulloch@iw.net, visited on Monday,
November 25, 1996:
Message:
Excellent!
Enjoyed the guest book.
But does no one remember "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" by Kuhn
[Spink, SD, United States]
Web Page: http://
michael innes, john.innes @jcu.edu.au, visited on Wednesday,
December 04, 1996:
Message:
[Townsville, Australia]
Web Page: http://
Glen Doki, gdoki@phy.duke.edu, visited on Wednesday, December 04, 1996:
Message:
I came here looking for the response from the editors of Social Text to the expose in Lingua Franca by Sokal (the first response). I can't seem to find a link that works anywhere!
[Durham, NC, United States]
Web Page:
matthew russell, matthew.f.russell@dartmouth.edu, visited
on Friday, December 06, 1996:
Message:
[, United States]
Web Page: http://
Pam Donovan, pdonovan@email.gc.cuny.edu, visited on Monday,
December 09, 1996:
Message:
Hi Alan, from Lynn and Bonnie's friend Pam
[New York, United States]
Web Page: http://
Allan Jacobs, jacobs@physics.utoronto.ca, visited on Monday,
December 09, 1996:
Message:
[Toronto, Canada]
Web Page: http://
Prof. Randall J. Scalise, scalise@phys.psu.edu, visited on Monday, December 09, 1996:
Message:
I've been following the story from Day 1.
Very amusing!
[Dallas, TX, United States]
Web Page: http://www.phys.psu.edu/~scalise/
, , visited on Tuesday, December 10, 1996:
Message:
Want to have World Wide Travel access with your own American Passport?...Want unlimited International Credit Cards?...Now you CAN, with your new American Citizenship!...Have a legal American Birth Certificate mailed directly to you, from a U.S. Gove
rnment office...Request must limited to ages (36), or younger...I won't tell your age, if you don't...For more information, E-mail me...Good travels!!!
[, United States]
Web Page: http://
Bill Elswick, belswick@entertech.com, visited on Tuesday,
December 10, 1996:
Message:
As an engineer 22 years out of college, I am both
amused and horrified by what passes for academic
debate and publically funded academic activity in
general given what I've read here. Am I to understand
that adult humans get paid real money to publish
and teach this sort of garbage? Perhaps we could
start paying social non-scientists in virtual money!
Hopefully more of these "intellectuals" will choose
to defy gravity from atop some tall ivory towers...
[Snata Monica, United States]
Web Page: http://
Ronald A. Palmer, Rapalmer50@aol.com, visited on Friday,
December 13, 1996:
Message:
Thanks. Sokal worked real hard on that article;
he deserves some kind of recognition. either that
or he's had alot of time on his hands in recent
years!
[Williamsville, NY, United States]
Web Page: http://
Brian Champness, 100065.2645@compuserve.com, visited on
Friday, December 13, 1996:
Message:
Wonderful. The reactions to the original Sokal hoax are similar to my own (much less important) hoax article on an alternative to various brands of psychoanalysis in the 1980s.
Has there been an effective reply to Sokal? Thousands of young and older people need to know...
[, United Kingdom]
Web Page: http://
Ernest S. Bernard, bernard@andria.lacollege.edu, visited on Friday, December 13, 1996:
Message:
Thanks for this page, which I've just disccovered by accident. I'd read the articles in NY Times but had not been able to follow the discussion because of being away on a backcountry assignment in the mountains. Now back in the hallowed halls, I h
ope to keep up with your site.
[Pineville, United States]
Web Page: http://www.lacollege.edu
elisabeth crawford, e.crawford@gersulp.u-strasbg.fr, visited
on Saturday, December 14, 1996:
Message:
[, France]
Web Page: http://
Jeffrey Haber, haber@sb.fsu.edu, visited on Sunday, December 15, 1996:
Message:
Thank you very much for maintaining this website about the
Sokal affair. This story is hillarious, and I enjoy
keeping abreast of it. Hopefully the increased awareness
in academia that the postmodernists are irrational and
destructive will help lead to their being replaced with
intellectuals who possess an objective metaphysics and
epistemology.
[Tallahassee, United States]
Web Page: http://www.sb.fsu.edu
Ron Lee, lee-ron@worldnet.att.net, visited on Sunday, December
15, 1996:
Message:
[, United States]
Web Page: http://
Dan Jorgensen, dwj@julian.uwo.ca, visited on Sunday, December
15, 1996:
Message:
Like your work, appreciate the effort!
[London, Canada]
Web Page: http://
Roger Depledge, 101233.3041@compuserve.com, visited on
Wednesday, December 18, 1996:
Message:
A very useful set of links -- thankyou!
As an Englishman in France, I am aware of how disorienting it is to come across a culture in which loyalty (preferably with the underdog) comes before any standard or rule that might be applied in theory. I am sure that loyalty makes us human, but cold reason makes us civilised.
[Toulouse, France]
Web Page: http://
Kaminski, Wanda & Piotr, wapiokam@imaginet.fr, visited
on Wednesday, December 18, 1996:
Message:
Bravo for the great job you have done -
we discovered the whole affair in Times Literary
Supplement of Dec 13th. We wholly subcribe to the
quotation that opens the page. Obscurantism is
death. Thanks again. P&W
[Paris, France]
Web Page: http://
Nicholas Heer, heer@u.washington.edu, visited on Wednesday, December 18, 1996:
Message:
[Seattle, United States]
Web Page: http://weber.u.washington.edu/~heer/
Jane Cave, cavers@ids2.idsonline.com, visited on Thursday,
December 19, 1996:
Message:
Thanks for a most informative--and exhaustive--listing.
[Washington DC, United States]
Web Page: http://
steve parker, stevpark@eden.rutgers.edu, visited on Friday,
December 20, 1996:
Message:
[new brunswick, n j, United States]
Web Page: http://
dan brickley, daniel.brickley@bristol.ac.uk, visited on
Sunday, December 22, 1996:
Message:
a wonderful site - great fun!
[bristol, United Kingdom]
Web Page: http://
B. Mueller-Ullrich, BMU1@compuserve.com, visited on Thursday,
December 26, 1996:
Message:
[, Germany]
Web Page: http://
joseph stephen o'leary, j-oleary@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp,
visited on Saturday, December 28, 1996:
Message:
Bravo, Sokal - though coming to you from Feyerabend
I must admit I was initially seduced by your piece.
If the art of criticism had not been abandoned by
literary and cultural critics, we would not need
you Swiftian services.
[tokyo, Japan]
Web Page: http://
joseph stephen o'leary, j-oleary@hoffman.cc.sophia.ac.jp,
visited on Saturday, December 28, 1996:
Message:
Bravo, Sokal - though coming to you from Feyerabend
I must admit I was initially seduced by your piece.
If the art of criticism had not been abandoned by
literary and cultural critics, we would not need
you Swiftian services.
[tokyo, Japan]
Web Page: http://
John N. Frary (Ed., LU/English Newsletter, johnf6@idt.net,
visited on Sunday, December 29, 1996:
Message:
A copy of the authentic Newsletter (Vol.3, no. 1) containing an account of Professor Stanley Eugene Poseur's visit to Lagado will be made available to all interested parties who provide a snailmail address.
[New Brunswick, United States]
Web Page: http://
Jane Andrew, andrew@interaccess.com, visited on Friday,
January 03, 1997:
Message:
You have my undying gratitude for collecting these document and providing a very valuable archive. I hope you are able to make provision for its permanent existence, to the extent permanence is possible in our new digital world. Excellent site both in design and thoughtful content details.
[, United States]
Web Page: http://
Donald Mintz, mintz@saturn.montclair.edu, visited on Saturday,
January 04, 1997:
Message:
[Ringwood, United States]
Web Page: http://
Donald Mintz, mintz@saturn.montclair.edu, visited on Saturday,
January 04, 1997:
Message:
Could you put up the Weinberg article from the New York
Review of Books? It seems to me among the most important
contributions to this debate.
[Ringwood, United States]
Web Page: http://
Daniel Atlan, 101473.3570@compuserve.com, visited on Sunday,
January 05, 1997:
Message:
I had heard of the Sokal article. You did a very good job here.
Thank you for helping me understand what this was all about.
[Paris, France]
Web Page: http://
Addison Bross, acb2@lehigh.edu, visited on Tuesday, January
07, 1997:
Message:
You've provided an immensely valuable service in this site. Sokal's work has supplied a focus at last for sensible debate on the meaning and value of the postmodernist-deconstructionist enterprise (as this is most commonly practiced). What the SOCIAL TEXT editors overlook, it seems to me, in their objections, is Sokal's well-taken point, that none of the more straightforward critiques of the sloppy thinking done in the name of cultural studies has penetrated the arrogant blindness of the practitioners of this deplorable enterprise. Sokal's method was fully justified by the neglect, by humanists, of their responsibility for maintaining sane standards in their own field. I hope that fruitful debate of the recent history of the human sciences will follow. The existence of this site is one justification for my hope. Congratulations!
[Bethlehem, PA, United States]
Web Page: http://
Addison Bross, acb2@lehigh.edu, visited on Tuesday, January
07, 1997:
Message:
You've provided an immensely valuable service in this site. Sokal's work has supplied a focus at last for sensible debate on the meaning and value of the postmodernist-deconstructionist enterprise (as this is most commonly practiced). What the SOCIAL TEXT editors overlook, it seems to me, in their objections, is Sokal's well-taken point, that none of the more straightforward critiques of the sloppy thinking done in the name of cultural studies has penetrated the arrogant blindness of the practitioners of this deplorable enterprise. Sokal's method was fully justified by the neglect, by humanists, of their responsibility for maintaining sane standards in their own field. I hope that fruitful debate of the recent history of the human sciences will follow. The existence of this site is one justification for my hope. Congratulations! (As for recent comment on this event, my favorites appear in last month's TIKKUN -- with a response by one of the SOCIAL TEXT editors -- and a letter by Elizabeth Bowman in the Jan. 97 issue of Z MAGAZINE.)
[Bethlehem, PA, United States]
Web Page: http://
Ivaldo Vernelli, temporin@mbox.vol.it, visited on Wednesday,
January 08, 1997:
Message:
Thank you for your splendid work!
[Rovigo, Italy]
Web Page: http://
Hal Peterson, hrp@netstar.com, visited on Wednesday, January 08, 1997:
Message:
I happened across this page when searching for "Stanley Fish", whose work I have studied. I had not heard of the Sokol flap, and I'm glad that you have provided this excellent summary.
[Minneapolis, United States]
Web Page:
michael r scollen, mscollen@club-internet.fr, visited on
Thursday, January 09, 1997:
Message:
Excellent, informative, balanced.
[Paris, France]
Web Page: http://
Bob King, RKingusa@aol.com, visited on Friday, January
10, 1997:
Message:
[Monmouth U. (NJ), United States]
Web Page: http://
A.S. Gutcheon, gutch@ziplink.net, visited on Monday, January 13, 1997:
Message:
Sokal's bold actions exemplify the best reaction
to the left's siege of nearly all institutions.
He is an example to be emulated.
[Hartford, CT, United States]
Web Page:
Jim Levinthal, ElDrummer1, visited on Thursday, January
16, 1997:
Message:
I AM GOD! ALL YOU FAGGOTS REMEBER THAT!
[Buffalo NY, United States]
Web Page: none
Jim Levinthal, ElDrummer1@Aol.com, visited on Thursday,
January 16, 1997:
Message:
"I once walked 1,000 miles the wrong way, but it took me to a better place than my first destination"
[Buffalo, NY, United States]
Web Page: http://