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The Sokal hoax

1996 · New York (New York, New York)

In 1996 the physicist Alan Sokal publishes a deliberately nonsensical article, Transgressing the Boundaries, in the cultural studies journal Social Text, and reveals the hoax in Lingua Franca the day of publication. The affair, the science wars' central episode, puts postmodern scholarship's standards on trial in the world's press, where the argument continues.

Tagged: Postmodernism

The Event

Date
1996 (exact)
Era
The Culture Wars; Standard periodization of postmodern history
Location
New York; today New York, New York
Traditions
Postmodernism
Streams
Postmodernism
Key figures
Alan Sokal
Key texts
Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity

Connections

Illustration for Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation History Event Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation 1981 the hoax's targets included the uses of science in the movement's texts

Primary Sources

  • Sokal, Alan. Transgressing the Boundaries. Social Text 46/47, 1996; and A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies. Lingua Franca, May/June 1996.

Secondary Sources

  • Bertens, Hans. The Idea of the Postmodern: A History. London: Routledge, 1995.
  • Hassan, Ihab. The Postmodern Turn. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1987.
  • Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. New York: Routledge, 1988.

Provenance: HIST-1448; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.

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