Haviv Rettig Gur
This is actually a sweet and useful counter to the insane social media whirlwind around this poor woman. I’m no fan of what parts of present-day academia have become. But I’m even less a fan of multi-million-person public lynchings of ordinary people going about their lives. As if all the great troubles of the world are done with and our attention is well spent on tormenting some literature scholar. I don’t know Dr. Louks. Based on data about the ideological monoculture that her professional world has become, I suspect she wouldn’t like me much if she knew me. (Apologies, Dr. Louks, if that isn’t true.) But she didn’t deserve this insanity. She committed no crime. She did nothing worse than take pride in accomplishing something significant in her professional and cultural world. I have no opinion on the substance of her dissertation. My non-work English-language reading is mostly old sci-fi, Terry Pratchett, or some Ursula LeGuin if I’m feeling really adventurous. But I appreciate this defense of her as a basic call for decency. Well done.
Mushtaq Bilal, PhD
Dr. Ally Louks's PhD thesis is set to be one of the most influential theses of 21st century. Puts forward an original argument with remarkable clarity. Already has 85M+ views on X/Twitter. Most people criticizing her don't understand her argument at all. I have a PhD in literary studies, and in this thread, we'll do a close reading of her abstract to understand her argument in simple English.
