Page 13 - Critical and Cultural Theory

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
individually, and in any order, as discrete entities. The choice of
one or the other type of reading will depend on the reader's own
interests and research priorities.

/. Linear route

The structure of the language in which this book is written
requires propositions to unfold in a linear fashion. Following this
logic, the text can be seen to trace a sequential trajectory, and its
three parts can be read accordingly.
Part I offers an introduction to a variety of critical positions
concerned with the relationship between the world and the
symbolic systems (such as words, visual images, social codes and
conventions) through which a culture unrelentingly endeavours to
'make sense' of its world. Part II concentrates on the cultural stra-
tegies through which people and their environments are
constructed, both physically and psychologically, in ideological,
political, sexual and racial terms. Part III explores some of the
ways in which critical theory and cultural theory have engaged
with issues of perception and knowledge, with reference to art,
popular culture, science and technology. The sequential movement
from Part I through Part II to Part III could be summarized as
follows. The symbolic systems through which the world is encoded
and understood (Language and Interpretation) underpin all
cultural formations, their power structures and their intersubjec-
tive relations (Social Identities)', a society's makeup, in turn, both
produces and is produced by systems of Knowledge designed to
relate individual experiences to collective concerns, objectives and
desires. The linear progression just described constitutes only one
aspect of Critical and Cultural Theory: Thematic Variations.
Indeed, the book also aims at offering a multi-dimensional and
interactive map which allows for non-linear excursions through
the book.

//. Non-linear route
The book invites the reader - with the aid of cross-references high-
lighted in its footnotes - to peruse the text in a non-sequential
mode. In the synopsis of the book's principal arguments offered
below, some possible interconnections are suggested. (The capita-

xii