Breaching the Field of Grievance Studies

 

A trio of liberal academics have achieved something quite remarkable: published a series of hoax papers in leading “grievance” studies journals on sexuality, gender and more. What are “grievance studies?” According to the researchers: “We prefer to call it “grievance studies” because many of these fields refer to themselves as “[something] studies” and because they operate primarily by focusing upon and inflaming the grievances of certain identity groups. We think it represents a significant and influential subset of the scholarship coming out of cultural studies within the humanities, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences and that is
gaining increasing power over our universities, institutions, media, and culture.”

Their objective wasn’t to improve their reputations, but rather to destroy them. They worked on these papers in order to achieve one goal: prove how utterly ridiculous the fields have become. The first part of their documentary was released today, and it’s worth a watch:

The researchers explained “What we’re learning is rather astonishing: the data we’ve gathered requires more analysis to fully comprehend. But what appears beyond dispute is making absurd and horrible ideas sufficiently politically fashionable can get them validated at the highest levels of academic grievance studies. We rewrote a section of Mein Kampf as intersectional feminism and this journal has accepted it. Social work. This is deeply concerning because the work of grievance scholars goes on to be taught in classes, to design educational curricula, to be taken up by activists, to influence how media is produced and to misinform journalists and politicians about the true nature of our cultural realities. Nobody tolerates this sort of corruption when they find out an industry is funding biased research to make itself look a certain way. The same scrutiny should apply to research when it pushes a political agenda and we have uncovered enough evidence to suggest that this corruption is pervasive among many disciplines including: women’s and gender studies, feminist studies, race studies, sexuality studies, fat studies, queer studies, cultural studies and sociology.”

What is notable about this experiment is how the perpetrators self-identify: as concerned academics and left-leaning liberals. The call is coming from inside the house. Of the twenty papers, seven were approved and accepted for publication, seven were in the process of being reviewed, and only six were rejected. Their work comes out of a desire to be pranksters, but to enact overdue and necessary reform in academia. In a fact-sheet on their experiment they explained: “Because formal scholarly criticism of these fields (see Pinker, 2003; Sokal and Bricmont, 1998; Söderlund and Madison, 2017; Stern, 2016, in particular) has not created needed reform, we attempted a criticism by means other than detached external scholarship.”

The experiment was inadvertently exposed too early by Kat Timpf at National Review, who wrote on one of the papers: a critical look at the behavior at dog parks, and how they inform our thinking on rape culture and queer studies.  She wrote,

A paper written by Portland Ungendering Research Initiative’s Helen Wilson claims that dog parks are actually very sexual places where we can learn things about rape culture and “queer performativity.”

Yes — seriously.

Wilson explains the whole thing in her paper, titled “Human reactions to rape culture and queer performativity at urban dog parks in Portland, Oregon.”

Turns out, it wasn’t so serious afterall, at least for “Wilson,” an imaginary researcher’s name used by the group. The trio claim to have more videos and tricks up their sleeves; and it will be interesting to watch if the academic world reforms to not just make sure the individuals submitting papers are real; but their research is as well.

Published in Education
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  1. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Ouch.

    • #1
  2. George Townsend Inactive
    George Townsend
    @GeorgeTownsend

    Thanks, Bethany!

    It sure sounds like a satire of what passes for education today, to me!

    • #2
  3. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    Bethany Mandel: We rewrote a section of Mein Kampf as intersectional feminism and this journal has accepted it.

    The details on that one are especially hilarious. They took a chapter of Mein Kempf  and replaced all of the references to Jews with terms from intersectional feminist studies. And it got accepted and published in a legitimate academic journal. Now I’m not saying that the journal should have recognized it as coming from Mein Kampf. I certainly wouldn’t. But if the deranged ravings of Hitler can be accepted without raising any red flags as long as they have the right buzzwords, something is seriously wrong with the field as a whole.

    • #3
  4. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    What an amazing project! I suspect they will either be ignored or be lynched by the outraged progressive Left; the latter is more likely, particularly since they are politically Left themselves. What a betrayal (it will be said)!

    • #4
  5. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Academic Jargon Generator

    Astound your friends…

    • #5
  6. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Bethany,

    Fascinating, heartening post !

    Re: # 4

    They’ll get rid of these pranksters by accusing them of sexual harassment or attempted rape.

    Seriously, every college student in the country should be made aware of this. I wish Anthony Esolen would write about it at Crisis. Has Rush Limbaugh mentioned it?

    • #6
  7. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    This project is a larger replication of Alan Sokal’s 1996 deconstruction of postmodernism:

    A New York University physicist, fed up with what he sees as the excesses of the academic left, hoodwinked a well-known journal into publishing a parody thick with gibberish as though it were serious scholarly work.

    The article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” appeared this month in Social Text, a journal that helped invent the trendy, sometimes baffling field of cultural studies.

    • #7
  8. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Project Veritas, The Academic Version.

    I’d be tempted to submit (with permission, of course) some of Glenn Ellenbogen’s old stuff from the Journal of Irreproducible Results and the Journal of Polymorphous Perversity to see if it would get past the editors of actual journals.

    • #8
  9. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: # 7

    Yes. I remember hearing something about this paper. But here’s what I think is the difference: The people who accepted the paper you mention pretended to understand nonsense words strung together the way people in the fairy tale pretended to see the emperor’s clothes. In one example of the papers Bethany mentions, the one in which Mein Kampf was used, the people accepting the paper were fine, it seems, with the ideas and sentiments expressed in the paper.

    (What I mean by saying I find the story heartening is that it’s heartening to me that the pranksters had the nerve to follow a hunch and do this.)

    • #9
  10. Dorrk Inactive
    Dorrk
    @Dorrk

    Nick H (View Comment):

    Bethany Mandel: We rewrote a section of Mein Kampf as intersectional feminism and this journal has accepted it.

    The details on that one are especially hilarious. They took a chapter of Mein Kempf and replaced all of the references to Jews with terms from intersectional feminist studies. And it got accepted and published in a legitimate academic journal. Now I’m not saying that the journal should have recognized it as coming from Mein Kampf. I certainly wouldn’t. But if the deranged ravings of Hitler can be accepted without raising any red flags as long as they have the right buzzwords, something is seriously wrong with the field as a whole.

    Well, you would expect them, at least, to have a way of testing papers for plagiarism, which should’ve caught this one. If Youtube has software that can detect copyrighted music and remove a posted video within seconds of upload, surely there’s something similar that will match text against published works.

    Here’s my question about this study: Yes, it certainly impugns the individual journals and their selection and publishing process, and suggests a systemic problem of gullibility. But in that video they seem to be suggesting academic fraud on the part of other papers. It’s very possible that is the case, but their prank only exposes fraud on their own parts. How does their prank reveal corrupt intentions among the other published writers? That’s the key to discrediting these studies and this culture, but I fear that, unlike these activists, most everyone else publishing papers in these fields is absolutely sincere about their grievances.

    • #10
  11. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    surely there’s something similar that will match text against published works.

    There definitely is. Lots of schools are using exactly that to prevent students from submitting papers written by someone else and find evidence of plagiarism. 

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    But in that video they seem to be suggesting academic fraud on the part of other papers. It’s very possible that is the case, but their prank only exposes fraud on their own parts. How does their prank reveal corrupt intentions among the other published writers? That’s the key to discrediting these studies and this culture, but I fear that, unlike these activists, most everyone else publishing papers in these fields is absolutely sincere about their grievances.

    I think their point is not that the other researchers aren’t sincere, but that what the researchers are claiming as “science” is indistinguishable from a fraudulent paper. The grievances may be genuine and the intentions pure, but the work being produced has no academic value if you can’t tell the difference between it and abject nonsense. So “fraud” might not be the right word for them to use since it does imply the corrupt intent. 

    • #11
  12. Dorrk Inactive
    Dorrk
    @Dorrk

    Nick H (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    surely there’s something similar that will match text against published works.

    There definitely is. Lots of schools are using exactly that to prevent students from submitting papers written by someone else and find evidence of plagiarism.

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    But in that video they seem to be suggesting academic fraud on the part of other papers. It’s very possible that is the case, but their prank only exposes fraud on their own parts. How does their prank reveal corrupt intentions among the other published writers? That’s the key to discrediting these studies and this culture, but I fear that, unlike these activists, most everyone else publishing papers in these fields is absolutely sincere about their grievances.

    I think their point is not that the other researchers aren’t sincere, but that what the researchers are claiming as “science” is indistinguishable from a fraudulent paper. The grievances may be genuine and the intentions pure, but the work being produced has no academic value if you can’t tell the difference between it and abject nonsense. So “fraud” might not be the right word for them to use since it does imply the corrupt intent.

    This is probably just an artifact of the Leftists in them clouding the clarity of their argument, but when they compared this phenomenon to biased and intentionally misleading corporate studies, it felt like an apples-to-oranges scenario. Their final argument, that this is a call for more critical thinking about fashionable ideas is worthy, though.

    • #12
  13. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Nick H (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    surely there’s something similar that will match text against published works.

    There definitely is. Lots of schools are using exactly that to prevent students from submitting papers written by someone else and find evidence of plagiarism.

    I haven’t used it since 2010.  I just read for writing that doesn’t look like my students wrote it.  I’ve caught a number of plagiarizers that way.

     

    • #13
  14. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    I teach philosophy for a living, and for reasons I don’t know I seem to miss out on most of this stuff.

    Is philosophy really all that much better than the Department of Something Studies?  Do I not go to enough conferences or read enough journal articles?  Do I spend too much time overseas?  Do I spend too much time with rational Christian philosophers–the type who publish in Philosophia Christi or Faith and Philosophy?  Do people like me who focus on the history of philosophy just tend to miss the craziness?

    • #14
  15. Bee Bob Member
    Bee Bob
    @BeeBob

    • #15
  16. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    but their prank only exposes fraud on their own parts.

    This is more investigative journalism applied to academic publishing than a prank or fraud.

    • #16
  17. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Bee Bob (View Comment):

     

    Amen.  Some of our academic luminaries should try saying this more often.

    • #17
  18. Dorrk Inactive
    Dorrk
    @Dorrk

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    but their prank only exposes fraud on their own parts.

    This is more investigative journalism applied to academic publishing than a prank or fraud.

    I’m interested in the journalism. There wasn’t much of it in this first clip.

    • #18
  19. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Bee Bob (View Comment):

     

    Amen. Some of our academic luminaries should try saying this more often.

    People who have nothing useful to say should be content with silence. 

    • #19
  20. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    I teach philosophy for a living, and for reasons I don’t know I seem to miss out on most of this stuff.

    Is philosophy really all that much better than the Department of Something Studies? Do I not go to enough conferences or read enough journal articles? Do I spend too much time overseas? Do I spend too much time with rational Christian philosophers–the type who publish in Philosophia Christi or Faith and Philosophy? Do people like me who focus on the history of philosophy just tend to miss the craziness?

    Philosophy isn’t a recently invented discipline like “Gender Studies” and the rest. One can make a good argument that it’s the foundation of all other disciplines. (I would imagine that you in particular could make that argument quite well.) I think that brings some legitimacy and seriousness to your profession that the others are lacking.

    • #20
  21. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    OkieSailor (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    Bee Bob (View Comment):

    Amen. Some of our academic luminaries should try saying this more often.

    People who have nothing useful to say should be content with silence.

    I once attended an eminently forgettable public lecture of the interfaith feel-good persuasion at the Graduate Thelogical Union in Berkeley. I knew the speaker, a rabbi in the throes of a graduate degree, and felt some obligation to help provide a respectable turnout for him.

    The late Huston Smith, then a GTU luminary at the pinnacle of his career, was in the audience and rose to deliver a comment small lecture nominally on topic – I think he intoned something to the effect that just as Christianity was Judaism for an audience beyond the tribe, Buddhism was Hinduism for an audience beyond the tribe – but in reality a small masterpiece of peeing higher on the tree than the main speaker both academically and religiously.

    Professor Smith was accompanied by a slender elderly Japanese man. He introduced his guest (I wish I could remember his name) as a professor whose field was something having to do with Buddhism in Japan. Professor Smith intoned something like “My colleague, Professor X here, knows more than I do about Buddhism. Perhaps he can further our knowledge.”

    Professor X rose, bowed, said “I have nothing to say” and sat down again.

    It was the highlight of the evening.

    • #21
  22. Nick H Coolidge
    Nick H
    @NickH

    Ontheleftcoast (View Comment):
    but in reality a small masterpiece of peeing higher on the tree than the main speaker both academically and religiously.

    I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that expression before, but it is SO perfect to describe the way some people act. I’m totally going to be using that one.

    • #22
  23. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    Nick H (View Comment):

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    I teach philosophy for a living, and for reasons I don’t know I seem to miss out on most of this stuff.

    Is philosophy really all that much better than the Department of Something Studies? Do I not go to enough conferences or read enough journal articles? Do I spend too much time overseas? Do I spend too much time with rational Christian philosophers–the type who publish in Philosophia Christi or Faith and Philosophy? Do people like me who focus on the history of philosophy just tend to miss the craziness?

    Philosophy isn’t a recently invented discipline like “Gender Studies” and the rest. One can make a good argument that it’s the foundation of all other disciplines. (I would imagine that you in particular could make that argument quite well.) I think that brings some legitimacy and seriousness to your profession that the others are lacking.

    Most of them, yes. Philosophers, however, did not invent the study of mathematics, religion, or literature.

    Well, now that I think of it, Pythagoras was a philosopher as well as a mathematician. I guess I don’t know who invented mathematics. Maybe it was originally an aspect of philosophy after all. Someone else probably knows that. I don’t.

    • #23
  24. Saint Augustine Member
    Saint Augustine
    @SaintAugustine

    I’m only just now getting around to watching the video.  What is feminist geography exactly?

    • #24
  25. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Saint Augustine (View Comment):

    I’m only just now getting around to watching the video. What is feminist geography exactly?

    Gaia liberation? Less glib:

    Feminism exists to critically and self-reflexively examine regimes of power at work in everyday life. Through attention to social differences, such as gender, race, class, ethnicity, age, ability, and sexuality, feminist geography highlights the significance of difference in shaping experiences of space and place. Feminist geography emerged in the 1980s as a move within geography that took two primary directions. First, to open the discipline up to more female geographers, through more equitable hiring processes and attempts to shift oppressive departmental cultures. Second, feminist geography encouraged geographers to develop scholarship that was mindful of gender and that included studies of women and women’s concerns.

    • #25
  26. Misthiocracy, Joke Pending Member
    Misthiocracy, Joke Pending
    @Misthiocracy

    The writers behind the “grievance studies scandal” have come out to respond to those on the Left who are criticizing their experiment:

    It’s also in no way surprising that people would say we’re tools of the right. It makes sense to clearly articulate [our views]. We’re of the left. [Grievance ideologues] don’t speak for us and we don’t think they speak for the left either. These people are lunatics.

    https://quillette.com/2018/10/05/writers-behind-grievance-studies-hoax-address-criticisms/

    • #26
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