Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1996 02:09:38 -0500 (EST)
From: Mimi  Nguyen <mqn9024-AT-is.nyu.edu>
Subject: attacks from "the left"....


i don't know if anyone's been following the marxism-international
discussion also by jefferson.village, etc., but it's really very
disturbing! it's about the sokal affiar at social text, the journal my
program director co-edits, and almost everything i've read comes down hard
against the "local" knowledges that we know, by now, are coded to stand in
for feminisms, queer theories/practices, etc., that are seen as
"diversions" by a white male-dominated left. it's really very depressing,
not to mention homophobic, reactionary, and an-all-together dismal
portrait of our "comrades" on the left. i wonder what other people's
reactions are to these kinds of attacks on cultural studies (including
feminist theory and ethnic studies, of course) coming from a nominal left,
i.e., how do YOU cope?! it's been very frustrating for me to watch this
debate unfold...

i was at the sokal/ross debate and have to say that andrew ross did a
wonderful job of trying to work thru the muck without mudslinging, a goal
not shared by sokal or his cronies in the audience. yikes. i felt under
seige. 

mimi nguyen
new york university
american studies