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James A. Lindsay

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James A. Lindsay
BornJames Stephen Lindsay
(1979-06-08) June 8, 1979 (age 45)
Ogdensburg, New York
OccupationAuthor, mathematician, cultural critic
EducationMaryville High School
Alma materTennessee Technological University (BS, MS)
University of Tennessee (PhD)
Period2017–present
Subjectcriticism of critical theory, postmodernism, social justice
Notable worksCynical Theories (2020)

James Stephen Lindsay (born June 8, 1979),[1] known professionally as James A. Lindsay,[2] is an American mathematician, author, and cultural critic. He is known for his involvement in the grievance studies affair with Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluckrose, the latter with whom he co-authored the bestselling non-fiction book Cynical Theories (2020). He is also the founder of New Discourses, a media website and educational resource on critical theory and social justice.

Early life and career

James Stephen Lindsay was born in Ogdensburg, New York. He moved to Maryville, Tennessee at the age of five, later graduating from Maryville High School in 1997. Lindsay received his B.S. in physics from Tennessee Technological University in 2001 and his M.S. in mathematics from the same institution in 2003, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Tennessee in 2010. His doctoral thesis is titled "Combinatorial Unification of Binomial-Like Arrays," and his advisor was Carl G. Wagner.[3]

Lindsay began using the middle initial "A." in order to pseudonymously write books about atheism and leftism in the conservative Christian South.[4]

Lindsay, along with Peter Boghossian, is the co-author of How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide, a non-fiction book released in 2019 and published by Lifelong Books.[5] In 2020, Lindsay released the non-fiction book Cynical Theories, co-authored with Pluckrose and published by Pitchstone Publishing. The book became a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestseller upon release[6][7][8] and a #1 bestseller in Philosophy on Amazon.[6] Harvard University psychologist Steven Pinker praised the book for exposing "the surprisingly shallow intellectual roots of the movements that appear to be engulfing our culture."[9]

Lindsay has also appeared twice on comedian Joe Rogan's podcast The Joe Rogan Experience.[10][11]

Grievance studies affair

In 2017, Lindsay and Boghossian published a hoax paper titled "The Conceptual Penis as a Social Construct."[12] In writing the paper, Lindsay and Boghossian intended to imitate the style of "poststructuralist discursive gender theory." The paper argued that the penis should be seen "not as an anatomical organ but as a social construct isomorphic to performative toxic masculinity."[12][13] After the paper was rejected by Norma, they later submitted it to Cogent Social Sciences, an open access journal which has been criticized as a pay-to-publish operation.[12][14][15]

Beginning in August 2017, Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose wrote 20 hoax papers, which they submitted to peer-reviewed journals using several pseudonyms as well as the name of Richard Baldwin, friend of Boghossian and professor emeritus of history at Florida’s Gulf Coast State College. The project ended early after one of the papers, published in the feminist geography journal Gender, Place and Culture, was criticized on social media, and then questioned in its authenticity by Campus Reform.[16]

The trio subsequently revealed the full scope of their work in a YouTube video created and released by documentary filmmaker Mike Nayna, which was accompanied by an investigation by The Wall Street Journal.[17][18] By the time of this revelation, seven of their twenty papers had been accepted, seven were still under review, and six had been rejected. One paper, accepted by feminist social work journal Affilia, was a rewrite of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf in feminist language.[19]

Tom Whipple of The Times wrote that academic reviewers had praised the hoax studies of Lindsay, Boghossian, and Pluckrose as "a rich and exciting contribution to the study of ... the intersection between masculinity and anality", "excellent and very timely", and "important dialogue for social workers and feminist scholars".[20]

Views

Lindsay, while describing himself as a left-leaning liberal, is a notable critic of the leftist political ideology known as "wokeness," which he analogizes to religious belief.[21][22] Columnist Cathy Young described Lindsay as "an author with a large 'anti-woke' online following" in 2020.[23]

References

  1. ^ "https://twitter.com/conceptualjames/status/1137208172341604352". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-11-07. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  2. ^ "https://twitter.com/conceptualjames/status/1289362946817028096". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-11-07. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  3. ^ Lindsay, James (2010-05-01). "Combinatorial Unification of Binomial-Like Arrays". Doctoral Dissertations.
  4. ^ "https://twitter.com/conceptualjames/status/1289362946817028096". Twitter. Retrieved 2020-11-07. {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)
  5. ^ "How to have impossible conversations". www.spiked-online.com. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  6. ^ a b Pluckrose, Helen; Lindsay, James A. (2020). Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity – And Why This Harms Everybody. ISBN 9781634312028.
  7. ^ "Bestselling Books Week Ended August 29". The Wall Street Journal. 2020-09-03. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  8. ^ Press, Associated. "US-Best-Sellers-Books-USAToday". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  9. ^ Paul Kelly (12 September 2020). "Tracing the dangerous rise and rise of woke warriors". The Australian. Retrieved 2020-10-01.
  10. ^ Peters, Justin (2019-03-21). "How Joe Rogan's Hugely Popular Podcast Became an Essential Platform for "Freethinkers" Who Hate the Left". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  11. ^ Jones, Collin (2020-07-09). "James Lindsay, of the woke's most prominent critics, has been locked out of Twitter". The Post Millennial. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  12. ^ a b c Schuessler, Jennifer (October 4, 2018). "Hoaxers Slip Breastaurants and Dog-Park Sex Into Journals". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  13. ^ Jaschik, Scott (May 22, 2017). "Hoax With Multiple Targets". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 23 January 2019.
  14. ^ Tillberg, Anneli (12 June 2017). "Attack on gender studies despite rejection of hoax article". genus.se. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  15. ^ "Statement regarding hoax article". normajournal.wordpress.com. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies. 26 May 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  16. ^ "Academic journal duped by author of 'dog rape culture' article". Campus Reform. 2018-07-25. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
  17. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVk9a5Jcd1k
  18. ^ Melchior, Jillian Kay (2018-10-05). "Opinion | Fake News Comes to Academia". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
  19. ^ Schuessler, Jennifer (October 4, 2018). "Hoaxers Slip Breastaurants and Dog-Park Sex Into Journals". New York Times. Retrieved 2018-10-08. ...a third paper, published in a journal of feminist social work and titled "Our Struggle Is My Struggle," simply scattered some up-to-date jargon into passages lifted from Hitler's "Mein Kampf...."They set out to write 20 papers that started with "politically fashionable conclusions," which they worked backward to support by aping the relevant fields' methods and arguments, and sometimes inventing data.
  20. ^ Whipple, Tom (October 4, 2018). "Journals publish hoaxers' absurd gender studies". The Times. p. 19. Retrieved January 27, 2019 – via EBSCOhost Newspaper Source Plus.
  21. ^ Mounk, Yascha (2018-10-05). "What an Audacious Hoax Reveals About Academia". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  22. ^ Romano, Aja (2020-10-09). "How being "woke" lost its meaning". Vox. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
  23. ^ "Young: Trump no answer to left's excesses". Newsday. Retrieved 2020-11-07.
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