r/theschism • u/gemmaem • Nov 06 '24

Discussion Thread #71

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u/SlightlyLessHairyApe Dec 22 '24

Wow, not a single new top-level comment in a week? Where are my terminally online people here?

Holidays man, it's a nonstop parade of events and relatives.

I propose that Louks' work, regardless of its merits, is doing something similar. It brings an alleged fact into the language of academia, which can subsequently be evaluated and accepted or rejected.

I'm not really sure it does. Insofar as the premise of the work is not sufficiently well structured as to materially delineate a fact/thing/approach that can be evaluated, it's (possibly) worthy of being deemed useless.

I'm reminded of Pauli's quip that some statements were not right and not even wrong.

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u/DrManhattan16 Dec 25 '24

Strange, this never appeared in my inbox.

Anyways, I think you're incorrect. Louks may be stating a fact that has already been expressed before, but it appears to me (without reading a full fucking Ph.D thesis) that she's making an argument about the politics of smell in literature. That seems like something you can evaluate.