Alan David Sokal (/ˈsoʊkəl/;^[1] born 1955) is a professor of mathematics at University College London and professor of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. To the general public he is best known for his criticism of postmodernism, resulting in the Sokal affair in 1996 when his deliberately nonsensical paper was published by Duke University's Social Text.

Academic career[link]

Sokal received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1976 and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1981. He was advised by Arthur Wightman. In the summers of 1986-1988, Sokal taught mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, when the Sandinistas were heading the elected government.

Research interests[link]

Sokal’s research lies in mathematical physics and combinatorics. In particular, he studies the interplay between these fields based on questions arising in statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. This includes work on the chromatic polynomial and the Tutte polynomial, which appear both in algebraic graph theory and in the study of phase transitions in statistical mechanics. His interests include computational physics and algorithms, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms for problems in statistical physics. He also co-authored a book on quantum triviality.^[2]

Sokal affair[link]

Sokal is best known to the general public for the Sokal Affair of 1996. Curious to see whether the then-non-peer-reviewed postmodern cultural studies journal Social Text (published by Duke University Press) would publish a submission which "flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions," Sokal submitted a grand-sounding but completely nonsensical paper entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity."^[3][4]

The journal did in fact publish it, and soon thereafter Sokal then revealed that the article was a hoax in the journal Lingua Franca,^[5] arguing that the left and social science would be better served by intellectual underpinnings based on reason. He replied to leftist and postmodernist criticism of the deception by saying that his motivation had been to "defend the Left from a trendy segment of itself."

The affair, together with Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt's book Higher Superstition, can be considered to be a part of the so-called Science wars.

Sokal followed up by co-authoring the book Impostures Intellectuelles with Jean Bricmont in 1997 (published in English, a year later, as Fashionable Nonsense). The book accuses other academics of using scientific and mathematical terms incorrectly and criticizes proponents of the strong program for denying the value of truth. The book had mixed reviews, with some lauding the effort^{[citation needed]}, some more reserved^[6][7], and others pointing out alleged inconsistencies and criticizing the authors for ignorance of the fields under attack and taking passages out of context.^[8]

In 2008, Sokal revisited the Sokal affair and its implications in Beyond the Hoax.

Quotes[link]

• But why did I do it? I confess that I'm an unabashed Old Leftist who never quite understood how deconstruction was supposed to help the working class. And I'm a stodgy old scientist who believes, naively, that there exists an external world, that there exist objective truths about that world, and that my job is to discover some of them.
• Anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Alan Sokal at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• University College London
• "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity"
• Alan Sokal’s collection of articles related to the Social Text Affair
• An interview with Alan Sokal on The Marketplace of Ideas

Coat of Arms

City hall of Sokal

This is an article about the city in Ukraine. For other uses, see Sokal (disambiguation).

Sokal (Ukrainian: Сокаль, translit. Sokal’, Polish: Sokal) is a city located on the banks of the Bug River in the Lviv Oblast of western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Sokal Raion (district), the city itself also ranks as a separate raion within the oblast. As of 2001^[update] Sokal had an estimated population of 21,700.

History[link]

Sokal lay in Polish territory from 1918 to 1944. Its western part (the village of Zhvirka) remained in Poland between 1944 and 1951. Before the Holocaust, Sokal had a Jewish population of 6,000, of whom only 30 survived. The town was liberated by the Soviet army in July 1944. ^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• (Polish) Sokal in the Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland (1890)
• Golos z-nad Bugu

v t e Administrative divisions of Lviv Oblast Administrative center: Lviv Districts Brody Busk Drohobych Horodok Kamianka-Buzka Mostyska Mykolaiv Peremyshliany Pustomyty Radekhiv Sambir Skole Sokal Staryi Sambir Stryi Turka Yavoriv Zhovkva Zhydachiv Zolochiv Cities Major cities Boryslav Chervonohrad Drohobych Lviv Morshyn Novyi Rozdil Sambir Stryi Truskavets Other cities Belz Bibrka Brody Busk Dobromyl Dubliany Hlyniany Horodok Kamianka-Buzka Khodoriv Khyriv Komarno Mostyska Mykolaiv Novoiavorivsk Novyi Kalyniv Peremyshliany Pustomyty Radekhiv Rava-Ruska Rudky Skole Sokal Sosnivka Staryi Sambir Stebnyk Sudova Vyshnia Turka Uhniv Velyki Mosty Vynnyky Yavoriv Zhovkva Zhydachiv Zolochiv List of: urban-type settlements — villages

Coordinates: 50°29′0″N 24°17′0″E / 50.483333°N 24.283333°E / 50.483333; 24.283333

This article about a location in Lviv Oblast is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (May 2012)

Michael Bérubé (born 1961 in New York City, New York) is the Paterno Family Professor in Literature and Director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities at Pennsylvania State University, where he teaches cultural studies and American literature. He is the author of several books on cultural studies, disability rights, liberal politics, and debates in higher education, and since 2004 has been a blogger on these and other topics. He is the 2012 president of the Modern Language Association, and served as vice president from 2010-2012. He also serves on the National Council of the American Association of University Professors, as well as on the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Bérubé's blog, which he began in January 2004, mixed his perspective on these professional and political issues with a variety of other subjects, ranging from his family life to music to professional hockey. His academic pursuits include American literature, African-American literature, cultural studies, critical theory, and disability studies, the last of which stems partly from his experience with his son Jamie, who has Down Syndrome; Bérubé's life with Jamie is the subject of his book Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996). Bérubé went on extended hiatus from his blog on January 8, 2007, and on March 22, joined Crooked Timber, a political blog jointly run by a number of academics. In 2007–08 he also blogged occasionally at TPM Cafe. He restarted his own blog on September 29, 2008, and maintained it until October 15, 2010.

Bérubé earned his B.A. from Columbia University in 1982 and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1989. He also attended Regis High School, in the same graduating class with U.S. Attorney & Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Before taking his position at Penn State, Bérubé held a professorship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Bérubé lives in State College, Pennsylvania with wife Janet Lyon. Together they have two sons, Nick and Jamie, mentioned above.

Books[link]

• The Left at War (2009)
• Rhetorical Occasions: Essays on Humans and the Humanities (2006)
• What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and "Bias" in Higher Education (2006)
• The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies (editor) (2004)
• The Employment of English: Theory, Jobs, and the Future of Literary Studies (1998)
• Life As We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child (1996)
• Higher Education Under Fire: Politics, Economics, and the Crisis of the Humanities (co-editor with Cary Nelson) (1995)
• Public Access: Literary Theory and American Cultural Politics (1994)
• Marginal Forces/Cultural Centers: Tolson, Pynchon, and the Politics of the Canon (1992)

External links[link]

• http://www.michaelberube.com Michael Bérubé's website, with blog archive