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> The problem is not simply one of obsolete ideas and refuted arguments but also of untenable form: No one in the academy seems to be writing books like these a
by vanderZwan 8y ago
> The problem is not simply one of obsolete ideas and refuted arguments but also of untenable form: No one in the academy seems to be writing books like these anymore.
Well, since you cannot determine if it is an Undead Text until it has been thoroughly rejected by the field after a few decades, the only other thing to do is to apply the "anti-disciplinary and scholarly"-litmus test to recent books. There's plenty of those, no? For example, Thomas Piketty's "Capital in the Twenty-First Century".
- bsder 8y agoI think the issue is that refutations now occur closer to real-time. Consequently, the book doesn't get time to get buried into academic "consciousness". I suspect that things like "Freakonomics", for example, would qualify, except that people have already picked it apart.
- vanderZwan 8y agoThat sounds like a good hypothesis. I am absolutely with you that in the academic scene refutations happen more quickly now; from what I have been told all academic discourse happens faster, so why would this be an exception. However, I'm not so sure whether these refutations spread among pop-culture more quickly as well. Freakonomics has been picked apart, yes, but has it faded out of the public consciousness yet?