Page 12 - Critical and Cultural Theory

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

offers its readers an alternative point of entry into critical and
cultural theory to the one supplied by several existing texts whose
focus is on movements, schools, trends, prominent names, intellec-
tual gurus and cultural icons. So much for the use of the word
'thematic'.
As for the use of 'variations', this is inspired by a desire to show
how several of the discourses and techniques developed by critical
and cultural theory can help us vary our take on objects and ideas
which we may otherwise conceive of as fixed. Music and painting
are not the only arts that flourish by producing variations on a
theme. The art of interpreting the world and its manifold systems
of signs, and of figuring out our individual and collective roles
therein, requires us to consider the multiple variations which any
human being may be in a position to produce on a given theme.
The themes addressed in this book could all be regarded as coordi-
nates within which our grasp of reality takes shape, and within
which disparate experiences come to form specific cultural para-
digms.
A number of traditional scholars have found critical theory
and cultural theory daunting due to these discourses' commit-
ment to a radical questioning of conventional concepts of truth,
value, unity and stability. Indeed, both critical theory and
cultural theory, in various degrees, have challenged the notion
that language conveys stable meanings and, relatedly, have
argued that both personal and collective identities are imperma-
nent. Moreover, both have emphasized the constructed status of
anything we may call 'reality'. Neither literature nor art nor the
human mind, for that matter, are seen to mirror reality in a
transparent fashion; in fact, they represent reality on the basis of
conscious, semi-conscious or even unconscious codes and conven-
tions. However, these positions should not be regarded as a nihi-
listic denial of meaning. In fact, they intimate that our sense of
reality may be enriched by an understanding of its inconclusive-
ness, its ambiguities and gaps.

READING CRITICAL AND CULTURAL THEORY
The book is constructed so as to make its chapters open to two
kinds of reading. On the one hand, the eighteen essays can be read
sequentially as parts of a whole. On the other, they can be read

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