Introducing Aesthetics

  What is beauty, and what is truth? These are some of the questions which aesthetics tries to answer. In our everyday life, we talk about the 'aesthetics' of an artwork or a piece of design. But aesthetics goes beyond the simple experience of art. It is also a branch of philosophy concerned with the whole nature of experience itself, explored through our perceptions, feelings and emotions. …

Introducing Aesthetics: A Graphic Guide

What is beauty, and what is truth? And what does aesthetics have to do with either? Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy concerned with the whole nature of experience itself, explored through our perceptions, feelings and emotions. The study of aesthetics, along with its widespread application in philosophical, artistic and literary circles, gained currency in the eighteenth century at the dawn o…

Introducing American Politics

  'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' The Declaration of Independence Despite 'the consent of the governed', the Democratic and Republican parties have been in stalemate for the last thirty years. The leadership of the United States has swung like a pendulum, and apart from the Reagan presidency of 1981-89 neither party has be…

Introducing Anthropology

Anthropology originated as the study of "primitive" cultures. But the notion of "primitive" exposes presumptions of "civilized" superiority and the right of the West to speak for "less evolved" others. With the fall of Empire, anthropology became suspect and was torn by dissension from within. Did anthropology serve as a "handmaiden to colonialism"? Is it a "science" created by racis…

Introducing Aristotle

Aristotle was known as the 'master of those who know'. A foundational thinker in every field of inquiry, he is unmatched even by his teacher Plato for his extraordinary range of mind. Introducing Aristotle guides the reader through an explosion of theories, from the establishment of systematic logic to the earliest rules of science. Aristotle's authority extended beyond his own li…

Introducing Aristotle: A Graphic Guide

Aristotle was known as the 'master of those who know'. A foundational thinker in every field of inquiry, he is unmatched even by his teacher Plato for his extraordinary range of mind. Introducing Aristotle guides the reader through an explosion of theories, from the establishment of systematic logic to the earliest rules of science. Aristotle's authority extended beyond his own lifetime to fundam…

Introducing Artificial Intelligence

  Can machines really think? Is the mind just a complicated computer program? Introducing Artificial Intelligence focuses on the major issues behind one of the hardest scientific problems ever undertaken. Artificial Intelligence is not just a fictional concept. Half a century of research in the construction of intelligent machinery has resulted in machines capable of beating the best human …

Introducing Barthes

  Roland Barthes is best known as a semiologist, a student of the science of signs. This sees human beings primarily as communicating animals, and looks at the way they use language, clothes, gestures, hair styles, visual images, shapes and colour to convey to one another their tastes, their emotions, their ideal self-image and the values of their society. Introducing Barthes brilliantly el…

Introducing Barthes: A Graphic Novel (PAPERBACK)

INTRODUCING guide to the cult author, semiologist and analyzer of advertising Roland BarthesRoland Barthes is best known as a semiologist, a student of the science of signs. This sees human beings primarily as communicating animals, and looks at the way they use language, clothes, gestures, hair styles, visual images, shapes and colour to convey to one another their tastes, their emotions, their i…

Introducing Baudrillard

Did the Gulf War take place? Is it possible to fake a bank robbery? Was sexual liberation a disaster? Jean Baudrillard has been hailed as one of France?s most subtle and powerful theorists. But his provocative style and assaults on sociology, feminism and Marxism have exposed him to accusations of promoting a dangerous new orthodoxy - of being the ?pimp? of postmodernism. Introducing …