For some light weekend posting, here’s the latest xkcd. It’s a pretty funny commentary on the state of academic discourse in literary fields. Remember the Sokal affair? That’s what happens when you build a discipline on something other than facts.
Which is too bad. Literature and its study are beautiful things, but you can twist anything into anything if it will get you notoriety as a transgressive deconstructionist or whatever. It’s too bad such things have been in vogue for so long. After all, a sufficiently clever person can make Moby Dick a metaphor about marriage!
2 responses so far ↓
1 James // Jul 20, 2008 at 11:41 am
Be interesting to hear how long it might take to con a Physics Grad Student?!
2 Paul Murray // Jul 20, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Part of the problem with this sort of sniping is that the sciences badly need the support of the humanities in the current culture wars. Enlighented people have to find common cause, or see the world descend into creationist madness.
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