Fashionable nonsense

About “Fashionable nonsense”

In 1996, Alan Sokal published an essay in the magazine Social Text that mocked the complex and unclear language used by contemporary theorists. After a major academic debate about the essay, Sokal collaborated with Jean Bricmont to examine how some postmodern thinkers misused scientific concepts in their work. They focused on writers such as Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, and Jean Baudrillard, showing how these authors incorrectly applied science to support their ideas. Fashionable Nonsense argues against the idea that scientific theories are just social stories, and it looks at what science can and cannot explain about the world. The book was published with a jacket summary describing its content.