Thread by @paulgknox

@WordsandGuitar A prof at Ryerson said a journal called his submission “too accessible” & rejected it.

Physicist Alan Sokal hoaxed the journal Social Text in 1996. They published his gibberish on “quantum gravity.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_aff…

Other stings followed:
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@WordsandGuitar 2 The best defence of esoteric writing in the humanities is that you can’t develop theory without it. You need new words to develop new concepts that will persuade other specialists. If you use a popular vocabulary your words will be imprecise and your arguments inferior. 2/

@WordsandGuitar 3 But that defence isn’t really convincing. Maybe 200-300 people read your work, and few theoretical advances make a difference to the objects of study. At a minimum you have to be able to recast your developed knowledge in plain language for a larger audience. 3/

@WordsandGuitar 4 If you can explain your ideas clearly for the masses, is there any point in also publishing in the academic space? Obviously if you’re up for tenure or promotion it’ll be required, and there’s only so far you can push back. It partly depends on the discipline you’re in. 4/

@WordsandGuitar 5 History and politics are relatively free of jargon and buzzwords. Newer fields such as gender, queer or Indigenous studies face criticism about whether they are “real” disciplines or aggregations from others. They may feel pressure to claim space with unique vocabularies. 5/

@WordsandGuitar 6 But tenure & promotion committees should reconsider this line of thinking. More than ever, scholarly work is expected to have an impact on the world, especially among people who occupy the space being studied. Public scholarship that inspires or supports action is prized. 6/

@WordsandGuitar 7 Words rarely heard off campus should be avoided - hermeneutics, pedagogy, heuristic & the like. But it’s not just vocabulary. It’s having one or two points and getting to them quickly. It’s keeping sentences short. It’s saturating writing with your enthusiasm for the topic. 7/

@WordsandGuitar 8 It’s also collaboration, such as joint authorship with members of communities. Or showing them drafts. Or consulting them before research begins. Even in disciplines such as literature and philosophy, texts can be composed so as to provide insights on contemporary life. 8/

@WordsandGuitar 9 I read a wide variety of scholarly work. Much of it is truly esoteric or minutely incremental. But many discoveries, insights & theories deserve to be more widely known. @WordsandGuitar’s opinion isn’t so unpopular. It should be heard & considered wherever research is done. 9/9

@WordsandGuitar @threadreaderapp unroll pls