This text involves students in understanding and using the 'tools' of critical social and literary theory from the first day of class. It is an ideal first introduction before students encounter more difficult readings from critical and postmodern perspectives. Nealon and Giroux describe key concepts and illuminate each with an engaging inquiry that asks students to consider deeper and deeper questions. Written in students' own idiom, and drawing its examples from the social world, literature, popular culture, and advertising, The Theory Toolbox offers students the language and opportunity to theorize rather than positioning them to respond to theory as a reified history of various schools of thought. Clear and engaging, it avoids facile description, inviting students to struggle with ideas and the world by virtue of the book's relentless challenge to common assumptions and its appeal to common sense.
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Always readable, often funny, and frequently profound, Nealon and Giroux tackle the most difficult and timely topics in theory with aplomb. An entire education in one tidy package. Students will find it invaluable, and advanced scholars will read it under the covers at night. (McGowan, John )
From their opening engagement with the punk song 'Why Theory?,' Nealon and Searls Giroux perform an impassioned and compelling argument for the productive work of theory as a crucial social action. As the title suggests, The Theory Toolbox, instead of simply reviewing schools of theory and criticism, aims to help students figure out what they can do with theoretical concepts as tools for living. Organized to provide a productive immersion in key concepts such as agency and ideology, The Theory Toolbox engenders pragmatic encounters with theorists from Nietzsche to Deleuze. Through pertinent political and social examples, Nealon and Searls Giroux succeed in demonstrating why theory matters and, most remarkably, why postmodern theory matters in everyday life. In succeeding, they make a critical intervention in undergraduate education and in wider debates over theory and practice. This book should be required reading for all students desiring to become thinking citizens. (Kevin DeLuca )
The Theory Toolbox is original and unusual, breaking the standard mold of social theory textbooks. It puts itself in the young theory student's shoes and imagines what s/he needs to know, and how best to convey difficult material. A distinctive feature of this book is its interdisciplinarity, borrowing concepts from humanities disciplines in order to enrich social and sociological theory. My theory students will definitely need this path-breaking book in their toolboxes. (Ben Agger, University of Texas, Arlington )
From their opening engagement with the punk song 'Why Theory?,' Nealon and Searls Giroux perform an impassioned and compelling argument for the productive work of theory as a crucial social action. As the title suggests, The Theory Toolbox, instead of simply reviewing schools of theory and criticism, aims to help students figure out what they can do with theoretical concepts as tools for living. Organized to provide a productive immersion in key concepts such as agency and ideology, The Theory Toolbox engenders pragmatic encounters with theorists from Nietzsche to Deleuze. Through pertinent political and social examples, Nealon and Searls Giroux succeed in demonstrating why theory matters and, most remarkably, why postmodern theory matters in everyday life. In succeeding, they make a critical intervention in undergraduate education and in wider debates over theory and practice. This book should be required reading for all students desiring to become thinking citizens. (Kevin DeLuca )
The Theory Toolbox is original and unusual, breaking the standard mold of social theory textbooks. It puts itself in the young theory student's shoes and imagines what s/he needs to know, and how best to convey difficult material. A distinctive feature of this book is its interdisciplinarity, borrowing concepts from humanities disciplines in order to enrich social and sociological theory. My theory students will definitely need this path-breaking book in their toolboxes. (Ben Agger, University of Texas, Arlington )
About the Author
Jeffrey T. Nealon teaches in the English department at Penn State University. He is author of several 'theory' books: Double Reading: Postmodernism after Deconstruction(1993), Alterity Politics: Ethics and Performative Subjectivity(1998), and the co-edited collection Rethinking the Frankfurt School: Alternative Legacies of Cultural Critique (2002). Susan Searls Giroux has a joint appointment in the English department and the College of Education at Penn State University. She is co-author, with Henry A. Giroux, of Selling Out Higher Education: Race, Youth, and the Crisis of Politics (2004) and co-editor of the Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent starting place for theory,
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This review is from: The Theory Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the New Humanities (Culture and Politics Series) (Paperback)
This book is excellent for learning the basic concepts of theory. It doesn't include primary sources, but it gives you the understanding you need to tackle the primary sources without getting lost. We used it in a discussion group and the questions in the book generated some great conversations!
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Appealing and straightforward,
By Luca Graziuso (NYC) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Theory Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the New Humanities (Culture and Politics Series) (Paperback)
Being a scholar by default I picked up Nealson & Searls Giroux's student-oriented compendium on postmodern theoretical applications as a diversion. It reads as an exciting conversational piece organized so as to provide a productive exposition in key postmodern concepts - such as agency and ideology - while using language and idioms that an uninitiated undergrad may find more appealing. Examples are drawn from advertising and popular culture, as well as literature and current social events. It succeeds in being efficiently user-friendly and does its best to challange assumptions and facile descriptions, yet it never goes beyond a superficial, albeit pragmatic explanation of theorists (as for example Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze) within a chapter analysis of theoretical topics that includes: theory, authority, reading, subjectivity, culture, ideology, history, space/time, posts-, differences and agency. It does disentangle the more difficult strands of theory and engages the reader in admirable ways. Ultimately the book adopts a slant that evokes a sociological and political education of why theory matters and more specifically why postmodern theory matteers for everyday life. There are condescendng moments when for example the authors write: "when we stop to think about it, we're incredibly dependent on media to keep us both informed and entertained" yet procede to introduce the pedantic pronouncement with media is mediation and do a thorough job at illustrating this fact. The book is studded with ads from popular magazines and each section includes a "Working Questions" and "For Further Reading" list which makes for an invaluable resource that is current and interdisciplinary.In the end this is a book which most who have a slight understanding of such topics will find very useful and pertinent as it lends currency to the impact of postmodern theory on literature, media studies, philosophy and critical theory. It is definitely recommended for undergrad students that are daunted by the presentation and rhetoric of the more academic reads. This book is intent on educating students and it is the next best thing to full immersion, as well as the perfect preface to further study.
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
For a criticism class,
By Lizzy T. (Denver, CO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Theory Toolbox: Critical Concepts for the New Humanities (Culture and Politics Series) (Paperback)
I am a culture and communication major -- a very communication-theory intense course of study. I had this for a class. It's great. It touches on theories of subjectivity and postmodern identity, which were my two favorite chapters. It is written in a conversational manner, despite the heady content. I think it was a helpful book for many students in my class. If you're interested in academic criticism or any theory, it's a pretty cheap book that's worth having for reference. The only annoying thing was the authors's tendency to try too hard to make pop cultural references or be funny. It wasn't funny and sometimes made me cringe.
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