Borin Van Loon: Intro CritTheory GG- Introducing... Critical Theory - a graphic guide

Icon Books (UK), Totem books (USA).
Written by Stuart Sim, Illustrated / designed by Borin Van Loon

The last few decades have seen an explosion in the production of critical theories:
deconstructionists,
poststructuraliststs,
postmodernists,
second-wave feminists,
new historicists,
cultural materialists,
postcolonialists,
black critics,
queer theorists...
to name but a few. The world around us can look very different depending on the critical theory applied to it. This vast range of interpretations can leave one feeling confused and frustrated. Introducing Critical Theory provides a route through the tangled jungle of competing theories. It provides a context for these recent developments by situating them within the longer-term tradition of critical analysis going back to the rise of Marxism. The essential methods of each theoretical school are presented in an incisive and accessible manner. Special attention is paid to recurrent themes and concerns that have preoccupied a century of critical activity.

In design terms, the main feature of each spread in this book is the use of a simple ruled border at top and right linking three iconic faces: square, circular and triangular. The regularity of this feature is varied by making the circular face different on each spread (over 80 expessions!), often interacting with the text. This title embodies much of the whole 'Introducing' series and therefore many of the portraits of the leading figures: there are well over 100 in the book including seven or eight of Karl Marx...

Reviews

One of my most memorable introductions to literature in my youth was the Classic Comics series. As it turns out, I was not alone in this - many adults have confirmed that they too developed an initial appreciation of the world's literary heritage by way of first exposure through Classic Comics. The idea was such a good one that two groups, one in the United Kingdom and the other in the United States have used the same technique to create and publish series of "documentary classic comics", overviews of ideas and people that summarize conceptual basics by combining caricature and text. This technique is a "multimedia" approach to presenting material - by engaging two sensory modalities, and displaying wit and humour as well as insight, the content is far more readily absorbed AND remembered.
Each of these books can serve as either an introduction for the novice, or a review for the acquainted reader. I recommend these books far more readily than actually going to the originals. Why? As a knowledge manager, I know that usually the substantive content is actually contained in less that 20% of an entire document. The rest is explication, elaboration, and examples - but speaking for myself personally, I don't need Plato's tour through ancient Athens to get his central message about the desirability of organizing social life on the basis of idealism and elitism! If a reader wants follow-up after that, by all means go to the originators or their epigones, but I am looking for concepts that are relevant to present circumstances, with a minimum of extraneous details...
Critical Thinking
During my time at university, Critical Theory was largely attributed to the Frankfurt School. But a recent reference suggested a broader base, so just to check it out I bought Sim's introduction. Sure enough, the contributors to Critical Theory has been far more extensive (and varied) that I had originally been led to believe. What Critical Theory turns out to be is a network of concepts, covering a wide spectrum of positions, often with contradictory perspectives on the many issues and ideas involved. One fruitful way of describing it, is as the historical inheritor of what Destutt de Tracy tried to create as a science of ideas just after the French Revolution (the study of which he named Ideology). Critical Theory is a succession of deconstructions of prevalent ideas, always with the objective to reveal their implications and debunk their pretensions. An interesting technique, but prone by some practitioners to McLuhan's Reversal Effect, wherein the tendency to push methods to extremes will undermine their early accomplishments. So Sim urges balance and caution - a wise piece of advice for the application of every technique.
I have more of these books on my shelf, and I am looking forward to reading all of them. So for instance, if you haven't time to read Hegel's THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND (at just under 800 pages), read INTRODUCING HEGEL at 176 pages - its much shorter, better illustrated, and covers all of the rest of Hegel's writings in addition to the PHENOMENOLOGY!
William Sheridan: ILLUSTRATING CONCEPTS  (http://www3.sympatico.ca/cypher/concepts.htm)




Off to read English Literature at University?

As the beginning of the first university term of the academic year is fast approaching, it seemed a good moment to blog about these nifty little tomes. Publishers Icon have a series of 'Introducing ...' guides which make an excellent starting point for getting your head around literary theory as an undergraduate. They are graphic guides not unlike the '...for beginners' series and as such provide a visual representation of the complexities of theory. I have been sent three to review, Critical Theory, Foucault and Freud, but there is an enormous range of use to anyone wrestling with literary or cultural theory including Postmodernism, Derrida, Marxism etc.
Literary theory can be such a shock to the system: after A levels enjoying Shakespeare or Jane Austen, the convoluted dryness of this kind of non-fiction can seem contrary to what drew you to study literature in the first place. Literary or cultural theory is complex and nothing is going to make it simple, but these guides provide another way into the subject, another means of contriving hooks on which to hang all the new information with which you are bombarding your brain.
Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide by Stuart Sim and Borin van Loon roughly takes one concept per page or double spread and attempts to summarise it. There are cartoons and other graphics but the sentences used are no shorter than standard theorizing I'm afraid! One of the wonderful things I first discovered inside is a family tree of cultural and critical theories from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. This is the first time I have seen anything or anyone render so neat the relationships between, for example, J F Lyotard, 2nd wave feminism, the French Revolution, neuro-psychiatry, postcolonialism, Umberto Eco, Utopian socialism, Russian formalism and so on. As to the rest it is truly a dip-in style of book with intense compact segments of information...
Borin Van Loon: Critical Theory table
... I also found Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide excellent as a refresher having not read much theory over the last few years. It is a neat reference book having a good glossary and a rather shorter index which gets you to the heart of each concept very quickly. As such I would have been glad of it as I embarked on my MA too.
Catherine Hawley, who has a degree in English from the University of Sheffield and an MA on the Eighteenth Century novel, runs www.clhawley.co.uk online bookshop. (http://juxtabook.typepad.com/books/2009/09/off-to-read-english-literature-at-university.html)

This books is best for those who are new to Intercultural Study, it is all embracing. (http://zerosbook.org)

This book, part of a series (basically "Philosophy for dummies") will be purchased by stressed-out college students trying to write term papers for literature class. After getting totally confused by the impenetrable writing of the great theorists themselves, students will turn to this book hoping to get some light. The book gives a decent overview of the major theories, trying to put them in common language, something the theorists themselves seem incapable of writing in. It goes so far as to use cartoons to get the points across. While it will help sort out Deconstruction from Formalism and so on, don't count on this to save your term paper the night before its due. There's not enough detail on any of the theories to stand alone, and they are presented in a strange order. Also, some of the major schools of criticism (like New Criticism) don't appear. The author is obviously quite fond of Marxism. Unfortunately, the author also slides into some of the same kind of mumbo-jumbo as the original theorists themselves. The idea is still a great one, however. If you read this, then some of the more specific books that follow (Introducing Lacan, Derrida, etc) it may help get you started.Hey, if the alternative is trying to sort through Derrida and Barthes themselves, then anything has got to be better. [4 star review] (http://www.fetchbook.info)

Critical Thinking
During my time at university, Critical Theory was largely attributed to the Frankfurt School. But a recent reference suggested a broader base, so just to check it out I bought Sim's introduction. Sure enough, the contributors to Critical Theory has been far more extensive (and varied) that I had originally been led to believe. What Critical Theory turns out to be is a network of concepts, covering a wide spectrum of positions, often with contradictory perspectives on the many issues and ideas involved. One fruitful way of describing it, is as the historical inheritor of what Destutt de Tracy tried to create as a science of ideas just after the French Revolution (the study of which he named Ideology). Critical Theory is a succession of deconstructions of prevalent ideas, always with the objective to reveal their implications and debunk their pretensions. An interesting technique, but prone by some practitioners to McLuhan's Reversal Effect, wherein the tendency to push methods to extremes will undermine their early accomplishments. So Sim urges balance and caution - a wise piece of advice for the application of every technique. 'Illustrating concepts' by William Sheridan
(http://www3.sympatico.ca/cypher/concepts.htm)

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