Date: Tue, 28 May 1996 18:39:11 -0400
From: Keith Alan Sprouse <kas3f-AT-virginia.edu>
Subject: Re: LAMENT FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY


At 01:08 PM 5/28/96 EST, Jeff Johnson  wrote:
> Not to rain on the pomo-bashers' picnic, but one unfortunate effect of
the Sokal
> hoax has been that  it inadvertantly rewards intellectual laziness.  Or
rather, it  has
> meant  that people who don't know anything at  all about "theory" except
that they
> don't like it  can  be  all smug  and pleased with themselves.  Now,  I
liked Sokal's
> article very much, and nothing could amuse me  more  than seeing Andrew Ross
> and Stanley Aronowitz trying  to  wiggle their way  out  of this one.  But
seriously
> -- to arrange Gilles Deleuze, Louis Althusser, Fredric Jameson, and twenty
other
> names under  the product-label "postmodernism" (or whatever), and  then to
> dismiss them all on the grounds that SOCIAL TEXTers can't pour piss from a
> boot with instructions printed on  the heel; what is this but utter nonsense?
[. . . ]
> And in  the same issue of LINGUA FRANCA as  the Sokal expose, there  is  a
little
> piece, very critical  indeed,  about  Jean  Baudrillard's exceptionally
silly booklet on
> the Gulf War; prepared for that journal by your humble servant.

This is the sort of thing that I was asking about.  I'm curious to know, for
those who are against more than just what the Sokal hoax suggest are the
postmodern/postmarxist posturings of Ross and Aronowitz, do you find all
postmarxist theory to be suspect?  Are there some theorists that you find
useful?  And then, of course, why?

Thanks.

Keith
____________________________________________________________________
Keith Alan Sprouse				e-mail:  kas3f-AT-virginia.edu
Dept. of French Language and Literatures		office:  804.924.4626
University of Virginia				home:  804.971.9824
Charlottesville, VA 22903			fax:  804.924.7157



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