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irina_maria's review
informative
fast-paced
3.0
Neatly structured, fun to read and manages to provide some useful connections. It does a surprisingly fine job of outlining hegemony and Saussure's langue-parole distinction.
bittersweet_symphony's review
3.0
I confess this is only the second graphic novel I have ever read--I feel like my eyes exhausted their energy scanning images rather than devouring lines of text. Please, forgive me for that. To each his, hers, its, or their own.
This visual compendium of Critical Theory is a speedy overview of a great tool--with its few dozen attachments--for "putting our culture under the microscope." I had some familiarity with the concepts which I remember from my undergraduate coursework in intellectual history and philosophy, but struggled to hold onto the ideas. The presentation is so cursory--limited by the style of book--that I not only struggled to retain the concepts as I turned to the next page, but I felt like I was grasping at each page to really comprehend it. So many ideas were new, and would require further investigation before I think most people (especially myself) would be able to really appreciate them. For this reason, I believe this book serves better as a review for somebody who wants to brush up on Critical Theory rather than an introduction to it. While it fails here, I think it succeeds in piquing the reader's interest in the discipline at large. It provides a solid list of notable further readings and a somewhat helpful glossary--whose text is equivalent to the text throughout the rest of the book.
If somebody is interested in Critical Theory, but doesn't know where to begin, I would suggest they begin by flipping through this book. Once they stumble upon something startling, and intriguing, they should find a book from the further readings to really get something meaty. Sim and Van Loon wisp through many schools of thought including Marxism, Post-Marxism, Structuralism, Postfeminism, Postcolonialism, Queer Theory, Black Criticism, and New Historicism.
This works best as a casual tease for those who want to know more about Critical Theory, but aren't sure that want to commit themselves to reading or thinking about anything. Maybe give it to your anti-authoritarian, angsty son or daughter as a going-off to college present?
This visual compendium of Critical Theory is a speedy overview of a great tool--with its few dozen attachments--for "putting our culture under the microscope." I had some familiarity with the concepts which I remember from my undergraduate coursework in intellectual history and philosophy, but struggled to hold onto the ideas. The presentation is so cursory--limited by the style of book--that I not only struggled to retain the concepts as I turned to the next page, but I felt like I was grasping at each page to really comprehend it. So many ideas were new, and would require further investigation before I think most people (especially myself) would be able to really appreciate them. For this reason, I believe this book serves better as a review for somebody who wants to brush up on Critical Theory rather than an introduction to it. While it fails here, I think it succeeds in piquing the reader's interest in the discipline at large. It provides a solid list of notable further readings and a somewhat helpful glossary--whose text is equivalent to the text throughout the rest of the book.
If somebody is interested in Critical Theory, but doesn't know where to begin, I would suggest they begin by flipping through this book. Once they stumble upon something startling, and intriguing, they should find a book from the further readings to really get something meaty. Sim and Van Loon wisp through many schools of thought including Marxism, Post-Marxism, Structuralism, Postfeminism, Postcolonialism, Queer Theory, Black Criticism, and New Historicism.
This works best as a casual tease for those who want to know more about Critical Theory, but aren't sure that want to commit themselves to reading or thinking about anything. Maybe give it to your anti-authoritarian, angsty son or daughter as a going-off to college present?
homa99's review against another edition
4.0
I was one of those people who would be like, "what the f are these people talking about???" whenever I'd here critical theory arguments against things like math, logic, science, etc. from folks at Cornell. Thanks to this book, I see that the whole genre or approach is not a total sham, but rather some of its ideological aggressors (read: students with little understanding of other approaches).
This is a nice visually stimulating way to be introduced to this world, its giants, and the historical progression. The only problem is, sometimes the brief synopses would be written in discipline-specific jargon and warranted more explanation for a layman. But I guess that has been happening surprisingly infrequently given the ground covered. We'll see if anything changes by the end...
Okay, now I'm done, and nothing has changed. I finished it like a month ago and kind of forget all the jargon I learned, but I guess the book will be handy if I ever I need any.
This is a nice visually stimulating way to be introduced to this world, its giants, and the historical progression. The only problem is, sometimes the brief synopses would be written in discipline-specific jargon and warranted more explanation for a layman. But I guess that has been happening surprisingly infrequently given the ground covered. We'll see if anything changes by the end...
Okay, now I'm done, and nothing has changed. I finished it like a month ago and kind of forget all the jargon I learned, but I guess the book will be handy if I ever I need any.
romcm's review
1.0
I don't think this simplifies critical theory, but it's an ok refresher if your understanding is patchy (like mine). It doesn't provide any kind of cohesive or chronological overview. It's just a bunch of disconnected parts. I don't think the pictures add to the text in any way. Compared to Economix, which provides a cohesive overview of a complicated subject in an illustrated format... it's not great.
jamrock's review against another edition
5.0
This was super helpful as a primer although some of the comments here are valid. I am no reading the "Continental Philosophy" book from the same series and I would probably recommend reading them in the reverse order. The format makes it much easier to allow complex theory to have time to sink in so the graphic novel format is great (even if I am more used to Saga, Maus, TWD, etc!)