Table of Contents

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Previous Work Relevance of Hoaxes to Current Scholarly Concerns Chapter Summaries 1. A Brief Natural History of Hoaxing Swift's Hoax and Satires Parody Nineteenth-Century Fraud, Tall Tales, and Science Fiction in America Kairos 2. Method The Search for a Method: The Traditional and Philological Genealogies of Linguistic Approaches to Literature Optimality Theory A Brief Tutorial: Optimality Theory for Reception Studies 3. Poe's Hoaxing and the Construction of Readerships Overview of Poe's Scientific and Rhetorical Acculturation The Contest between "Hans Phaall" and Locke's Moon Hoax: Revealing Reader Expectations Collecting Reader Expectations The Balloon-Hoax The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar Von Kempelen and His Discovery Solutions to Problems in Poe Scholarship Poe's Relationship to Science and to His Readership: How the Hoaxes Interact with Eureka 4. Mark Twain and the Social Mechanics of Laughter Rhetorical Acculturation Scientific Acculturation The Petrified Man Adjusting the Filter of Expectations to Account for Twain's Hoaxing Applying the Analysis to Problems in Twain Scholarship Relationship of the Hoax to Twain's Scientific Thinking The Social Mechanics of Laughter 5. The Hoaxes of Dan De Quille: Building and Defending the West Rhetorical Acculturation Scientific Acculturation De Quille's Hoaxes Summary of Reading Expectations Based on De Quille's Hoaxes De Quille's Hoaxes Build and Defend His Ideal West 6. The Mechanics of Hoaxing How Did the Hoaxes Work? The Hoax as a Machine Conclusion Conclusion: The Sokal Hoax Exploiting the Conventions of the Cultural Studies Article Sokal's Hoax Constructs Him as a Notorious Expert The Hoax as a Computer Virus Appendix A: How to Read Tables in Optimality Theory (OT) What the Parts of the Table Mean The Results of the Syllabification of /Anset/ Optimality Theory Applied to a Decision about a Hoax's Truth-Value Appendix B Notes Glossary Bibliography Index

About the Author

Lynda Walsh is Assistant Professor of English at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Reviews

"As Walsh points out, there is no extended analysis of hoaxes in the rhetoric of science, and her book shows how important hoaxes are in understanding the history of professionalized science as it emerged in the United States. The relationship of science and the public is of utmost importance in science studies, and the author has identified a key source of historical information about this relationship."

"I found the book to be quite informative, not only as a technical exploration concerned with how readers interact with texts that promulgate hoaxes, but also as a work providing helpful glimpses of the emerging roles of science and media in this period."