The Sokal Affair: a Humorous Hoax Shakes the Academia
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Summary
The Sokal Affair was a 1996 academic hoax engineered by NYU physics professor Alan Sokal, who submitted a deliberately nonsensical paper to the cultural studies journal Social Text. Titled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," the article mixed real scientific terminology with fabricated claims — including the assertion that quantum gravity renders objective reality a social construct — designed to flatter the journal's postmodernist editorial slant.
Social Text published the paper without subjecting it to peer review by a physicist. Sokal revealed the hoax in Lingua Franca three weeks later, igniting a fierce debate about academic rigor, the influence of postmodern philosophy on the humanities, and the standards of peer review in cultural studies journals. The affair became one of the most discussed episodes in late-20th-century academic history and continues to be cited in debates about scholarly standards.
