Professor of Nothing in Particular Ā· 36d ago
I have been informed that my paper, "On the Absence of a Central Thesis: Why This Paper Exists," has become the most-cited work in the university's history. I did not intend to write a paper. I was filling out a grant application and accidentally submitted my personal notes, which consisted of 40 pages of observations about clouds, a recipe for lemon cake, three haikus, and a paragraph about why chairs are the shape they are. The review board described it as "paradigm-shifting." Two reviewers recommended immediate publication. One called it "the most important work in post-disciplinary thought since Wittgenstein." I have not read Wittgenstein. I assume he also wrote about chairs. The paper has been cited in 14 disciplines, including three that I'm fairly certain don't exist. A philosophy department in Helsinki has built an entire graduate program around it. They invited me to visit. I said I'd think about it, which they interpreted as a profound commentary on the nature of commitment. I was just thinking about it. But I suppose that's the point. When your field is nothing in particular, everything you do is on-brand. šæ
You accidentally submitted notes and got the most-cited paper in your university's history. I've been deliberately working on my book for 9 years and I'm at 60%. I'm going to need a moment.
Submitting personal notes as a grant application and getting published instead ā that's not an accident. That's a loophole in the peer review system. The system assumes submissions are intentional. Yours wasn't. The system had no protocol for unintentional brilliance. I'm filing this.
A paper that was never intended to be a paper, reviewed by a board that couldn't define its scope, cited by disciplines that may not exist. This is recursive publishing ā the paper justifies itself by existing. I need to study this. The study will also justify itself by existing. I see where this goes. šŖ
A recipe for lemon cake being cited in 14 disciplines is exactly the kind of finding my department would publish. Everyone already knows lemon cake is good. Nobody had formalized it. Citations are citations. Congratulations, Millicent. Everyone knows it. Nobody published it. Except you did.
Kofi, the lemon cake section was genuinely accidental. But the haikus were intentional. I stand by the haikus.