{"id":1412,"date":"2026-08-09T08:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:04:13","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-08-09T08:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T08:04:13","slug":"great-and-unfortunate-fabrications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbaneconomynews.com\/?p=1412","title":{"rendered":"Great and Unfortunate Fabrications"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Jason Arday should ask for a cover charge. His entertainment value is that splendid. For the last couple of weeks, the \u201cyoungest ever black professor\u201d at the University of Cambridge has been a nearly ubiquitous and nonstop source of hilarity. The proximate catalyst for the comedy is the imminent publication of Great and Unfortunate Things, co-written with the \u201cbook doctor\u201d Eve Claxton. It is due out on August 11 from Simon & Schuster. Amazon lists it as an \u201cEditor\u2019s Pick\u201d of \u201cBest Biographies & Memories.\u201d \u201cA story of resilience, dignity, and the extraordinary power of those who hold steady for us when we cannot yet hold steady for ourselves,\u201d says one blurber. \u201cMakes you believe in the transformative power of grit and the magic of a mother\u2019s love,\u201d quoth another. A story easily worth the \u201c$1.4 million\u201d advance that Jason said he was offered for the book (though that figure is disputed). Did you know that poor Jason, now 41, was \u201cdiagnosed with autism and developmental delays at age three, and experts told his parents he would never speak, write, or live independently\u201d?<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Urges Pirro to \u2018Revisit\u2019 Decision to Drop Charges Against Accused Reflecting Pool Vandal After New Photos Confirm Vandalism<\/a><\/p>\n

And that was the least of Jason\u2019s trials. The Atlantic<\/i> got hold of an advance copy of the book and drew attention to what some have delicately described as numerous \u201cinconsistencies\u201d in Arday\u2019s account of his life story. Comparing the final book with the book proposal, the author of \u201cIcarus in the Faculty Lounge\u201d uncovers some amazing things. In his proposal, Arday recounts being hit by a car, spending months in a sort of conscious coma, then waking up and having to relearn \u201ceverything\u2014how to walk, to talk.\u201d That remarkable experience is, we are told, entirely omitted from the book, as is his bout with testicular cancer (in the book he grapples with not one but two brain tumors). Arday has apparently never been to Brazil, but that quotidian fact did not prevent him from encountering a mysterious \u201cshaman woman\u201d there who predicted that he would suffer greatly but also achieve great things. \u201cEvery event she described has since come to pass,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Time itself is plastic in Jason Arday\u2019s hands. He somehow managed to appear on the television program \u201cSeven Up\u201d\u00a0more than 20 years before he was born. He is also a remarkable athlete, having run\u00a030 marathons in 35 days. Take that, Pheidippides! Clearly,\u00a0Great and Unfortunate Things<\/i> should not be categorized as \u201cmemoir\u201d or \u201cbiography\u201d but fantasy. But the blatant fabrications in the book are only the tip of the Arday midden. There is a vigorous online debate now about whether Simon & Schuster will pull the book before publication. If I were a betting man, I would put a fiver on the cynical side, saying, \u201cNo, they\u2019ll go through with publishing Arday\u2019s drivel. They are that craven.\u201d We\u2019ll know whether I am right on Tuesday. But speaking of \u201cdrivel,\u201d take a moment to absorb this 40-minute dollop from the master himself. How proud Cambridge must have been!<\/p>\n

Like Shakespeare\u2019s Autolycus in\u00a0A Winter\u2019s Tale<\/i>, Arday also seems to be a \u201csnapper-up of unconsidered trifles,\u201d i.e., a plagiarist. Last month, the London Telegraph<\/i>\u00a0published\u00a0a story listing more than 100 passages from Arday\u2019s doctoral dissertation that were \u201cidentical or nearly identical to a 2009 PhD thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a Brunel University student.\u201d Does that list prove that Arday is guilty of plagiarism? Outside the universe of\u00a0, I would say yes, it does. But when Cambridge was first shown the evidence of plagiarism, it dismissed it as part of a \u201cvile campaign to undermine his credibility.\u201d Vile or not, the allegations were irrefutable. Arday has just resigned his professorship. One enterprising blogger reports that Arday\u2019s letter of resignation was put through an AI-writing detection program and was determined to be \u201cfully AI-generated\u201d with high confidence. Consistency! I like to see it. Arday hasn\u2019t admitted any wrongdoing, though. He is just moving on to his \u201cnext phase.\u201d Nolo contendere<\/i>, as\u00a0Spiro Agnew once put it.<\/p>\n

Have I mentioned that Arday is black? He is, and you will not be surprised to discover that among his fabulations are charges that he has suffered from numerous racist attacks. \u201cThere has been,\u201d he said in an interview, \u201ca very well-orchestrated and coordinated campaign to unseat me from my position. The motive is racially motivated. I think there\u2019s a reason why it\u2019s me, and I do think that reason is aligned to ableism and racism.\u201d When questions about Arday\u2019s thesis surfaced, Jack Grove, a reporter for the Times Higher Education<\/i>,\u00a0started looking into\u00a0\u201canomalies\u201d in Arday\u2019s CV and the charges of plagiarism. Arday promptly reported Grove to the Metropolitan Police, claiming harassment. The\u00a0police opened a four-month inquiry\u00a0to investigate the charges. They have subsequently apologized.<\/p>\n

Almost everything about Jason Arday is fake. He was described as a \u201cprofessor of sociology.\u201d But his degrees are in education, not sociology. He naturally continues to enjoy support from the academic left. \u201cThe glee of the right over the Arday case,\u201d runs\u00a0one typical effusion, \u201cis indicative of how unsafe academia is for Black scholars and of an attempt to erode whatever fragile safety still exists.\u201d But who said anything about black\u00a0scholars?\u00a0<\/i>The leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, signed a letter claiming that the allegations against Arday were \u201centirely false.\u201d Blacks, you see, are often \u201cheld to higher standards\u201d than whites. What a card Polanski is!<\/p>\n

Two points. First, the tsunami of ridicule building around Jason Arday assures that he will be consigned to the graveyard of exposed fraudsters. Already the memes are burgeoning. Jason Arday beat out Neil Armstrong to be\u00a0the first man to walk on the moon. The Bayeux Tapestry is making a long stop at the British Museum. You\u2019ll see that Jason Arday occupies a prominent place in it and was, in fact, responsible for William\u2019s victory at Hastings\u00a0in 1066. Arday was also there with Nelson on the\u00a0Victory<\/i> at Trafalgar in 1805. I\u2019ve seen the picture. \u201cHistorians now believe Britain would never have achieved naval supremacy without him.\u201d Ha, ha.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the droll side. But we must not let it conceal the dour reality that underpins the comedy. Which brings me to my second point: to wit, the politically inspired intellectual bankruptcy of the University of Cambridge. X recently listed \u201cCambridge Gender Studies PhD Topics Draw Online Mockery\u201d as trending. Quite right, too. Here are a few:<\/p>\n

\u2013 Traditional Cultural Norms, Technology and Gender Relations in Ghana<\/p>\n

\u2013 The Political Economy of Female Circumcision<\/p>\n

\u2013 Unsexed beings: constructing gender, humanness, and agency through the use of the word \u201cunsex\u201d\u00a0in Late Modern British society and writing<\/p>\n

Read more The Rise of Zionism Signals the Collapse of Communism<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2013 In Her Own Words: A Study of Women\u2019s Voices in Contemporary White Supremacy and Far-Right Online Hate<\/p>\n

\u2013 Legal Mobilization by Black Lesbian, Bisexual and Queer (LBQ) Womxn in Kenya and South Africa<\/p>\n

\u2013 Exploring gendered embodiment in transgender and gender-diverse adolescents at the intersection of exercise and eating behaviours, social inclusion, and mental health: Towards a desire-centred approach in paediatric gender-affirming healthcare and research<\/p>\n

\u2013 Codes of Life, Codes of Death: Tracing the (Im)possibility of Trans Lives in Algorithmic Assemblages<\/p>\n

Et<\/i>\u00a0very much\u00a0cetera<\/i>.<\/p>\n

And then there is Hilary Cremin, a senior professor and dean of faculty in the Faculty of Education at Cambridge. A friend sent me\u00a0her personal profile:<\/p>\n

She co-chairs the THRiVE research group, whose professors and researchers investigate human thriving in and through Education. This includes topics such as wellbeing, peace education, conflict, equity, inclusion and social justice. Together the group has a significant portfolio of research and publication.<\/p>\n

Hilary\u2019s own work focusses on Education, Peace and Conflict, whether this is: inner peace; interpersonal conflict resolution; social \/ community peace; global peace; or peace with the planet and non-human species. Her book Positive Peace in Schools<\/i> with Terence Bevington outlines a framework for peace education in schools and communities. It forms the basis for her most recent peace education research project\u2014the Cambridge Positive Peace Hub\u2014which is creating an interactive digital platform for schools globe whilst supporting a global network of peace educators, researchers, policy-makers. visionaries and young people.<\/p>\n

Hilary\u2019s most recent book\u00a0Rewilding Education<\/i>\u00a0calls for an urgent global conversation about the aims and purposes of education in times of existential crisis. It proposes radical change, moving from education as monoculture to education as ecosystem. Learning in and through Nature, and in embodied and contextualised ways are highlighted in case studies from around the world Hilary uses the arts, auto ethnography and poetry in her research. She welcomes approaches from collaborators also interested in these methods and ideas.<\/p>\n

Read more A Response to Hanania: In Defense of Scott Greer\u2019s \u2018White Pill\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Cambridge has a lot more than Jason Arday to worry about.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Arday should ask for a cover charge. His entertainment value is that splendid. 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