ABSTRACT

Political theory as described by the London and Westminster Review and by Sheldon Wolin is, when at its best, a form of radical political criticism. However, Wolin's argument for transformative political criticism was also a defensive posture. Moreover, the criticism offered by academic political theory no longer offered a re-view of the state if the critical state transformations of 1989 were being largely ignored. Gunnell offers one assessment of the journal that forms part of his larger argument regarding the alienation of academic political theory from politics. Marxism would come to appear for those involved in Australian journal Thesis Eleven. In order to understand the Sokal hoax in the context of the author's broader argument, it is important to recognize that Social Texts editors were responding to what they saw as the ossified and reactionary practice of the scientific peer review process.