Introducing Derrida: A Graphic Guide

by Jeff Collins, Bill Mayblin (Illustrator)

Overview

Brilliant illustrated guide to the best-known and most controversial continental philosopher of the latter 20th century. Jacques Derrida is the most famous philosopher of the late 20th century. Yet Derrida has undermined the rules of philosophy, rejected its methods, broken its procedures and contaminated it with literary styles of writing. Derrida's philosophy is a puzzling array of oblique, deviant and yet rigorous tactics for destabilizing texts, meanings and identities. 'Deconstruction', as these strategies have been called, is reviled and celebrated in equal measure. Introducing Derrida introduces and explains his work, taking us on an intellectual adventure that disturbs some of our most comfortable habits of thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848312050
Publisher:	Amberley Publishing
Publication date:	02/03/2011
Series:	Graphic Guides
Edition description:	Fourth Edition
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	4.65(w) x 6.61(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Jeff Collins is Lecturer in Art History at the University of Plymouth Bill Mayblin is an acclaimed graphic artist whose other INTRODUCING titles include Logic and Linguistics

Editorial Reviews

This book series is part of an alarming trend in higher educationlearning through amusementand an even more alarming new genreintellectual comic books trafficking as serious learning tools. It is to philosophy what the Classic Comic is to literature and the campaign ad to politics: Cliff Notes meet the sound bite. Short on text and long on large cartoonsemotivism gets 13 lines and four dialog balloons; the Theory of Forms seven lines and two balloonsthe texts badly introduce individual thinkers or areas of thought. The sound bite is empty enough when presenting facts, but as a way to get across concepts, positions and arguments, it is self-defeating. These works necessarily emphasize what the thinker thinks, presented informationally, not why or how those conclusions were reached. Thus, even when the texts aren't superficial, the thinkers' claims are utterly obscure. The art work is high quality and witty, and the agenda clearly postmodernKant is read as a protodeconstructionist, the universalist enterprise of ethics gets mocked. Thus, their best audience is the opposite of the one intended: not the beginner but the advanced reader of philosophy who can appreciate the fun. At their best, these works belong in Father Guido Sarducci's "Five-Minute College," in which for each course he gives a slogan. At their worst, these books will change remembering a slogan to remembering a picture. Not recommended.Lee Horvitz, Miami Univ., Middletown, Ohio

Library Journal