borin van loon
Buddha: A Graphic Guide
Meditation, Karma, Zen, Tantric and Nirvana are some of the many Buddhist ideas Westerners hear of frequently, even if their meaning has been lost in translation. This vast and complex non-theistic religion is woven into the fabric of Asian civilizations, from India to the Himalayan regions, China, Vietnam, Japan and elsewhere.
What is Buddhism really about?
Introducing Buddha describes the life and teachings of the Buddha, but it also shows that enlightenment is a matter of experiencing the truth individually, and by inspiration which is passed from teacher to student. Superbly illustrated by Borin Van Loon, the book...
Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide
What might a ‘theory of everything’ look like? Is science an ideology? Who were Adorno, Horkheimer or the Frankfurt School?
The decades since the 1960s have seen an explosion in the production of critical theories. Deconstructionists, poststructuralists, cultural materialists, postcolonialists, black critics and queer theorists, among a host of others, all vie for our attention.
Stuart Sim and Borin Van Loon’s incisive graphic guide provides a route through the tangled jungle of competing ideas and provides an essential historical context, situating these theories within a tradition of critical analysis...
Sociology: A Graphic Guide
What is sociology? Simply, it is the study of how society functions, or in some cases, does not function.
Various competing schools of sociology have attempted to fit observations of social phenomena into different conceptual systems. Introducing Sociology traces the origins of these systems from Enlightenment thought and the pioneering work of Auguste Comte to subsequent developments in Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber.
The rapid expansion of sociology in 20th-century America and Britain, the post-World War II dominance of Talcott Parsons, the Chicago School and the rise of Structuralism are...
Statistics: A Graphic Guide
From the medicine we take, the treatments we receive, the aptitude and psychometric tests given by employers, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear to even the beer we drink, statistics have given shape to the world we inhabit.
For the media, statistics are routinely ‘damning’, ‘horrifying’, or, occasionally, ‘encouraging’.
Yet, for all their ubiquity, most of us really don’t know what to make of statistics. Exploring the history, mathematics, philosophy and practical use of statistics, Eileen Magnello – accompanied by Borin Van Loon’s intelligent graphic...
Cultural Studies: A Graphic Guide
Cultural studies is a discipline that claims not to be a discipline – a radical critical approach for understanding racial, national, social and gender identities.
Introducing Cultural Studies provides an incisive tour through the minefield of this complex subject, charting its origins in Britain and its migration to the USA, Canada, France, Australia and South Asia, examining the ideas of its leading exponents and providing a flavour of its use around the world. Covering the ground from Gramsci to Raymond Williams, postcolonial discourse to the politics of diaspora, feminism to queer theory, technoculture and the media to...
Media Studies: A Graphic Guide
The media is ubiquitous. Every day we watch hours of TV, listen to the radio, surf the web, read newspapers and magazines, go to the cinema or watch DVDs. The media in these forms and more exercise enormous influence and power over all of us.
Introducing Media Studies explores the complex relationship between the media, ideology, knowledge and power. It provides a scintillating tour of media history and presents a coherent view of the media industry, media theory and methods in media research. It explains how ‘the audience’ is constructed and how it in turn interprets the content and meaning of media representation....