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jake_powell's review against another edition
4.0
A wonderful introduction to a few important thinkers, and I appreciated how visual metaphors were used to explain complex ideas in a way that I think will help me remember them. Quick but thought-provoking read, and glad to have this launching point for further engagement with these authors and ideas!
grahamcifelli's review against another edition
3.0
3.5, pretty good overview but was really disappointed on the sections on Fanon and Freire, reading them as "non-violent" felt misrepresentative of their work and like the book was using the very loose liberal buzzword of non violence.
meepelous's review
4.0
And today we will be talking about a collection of introductions to philosophical thoughts about violence entitled Portraits of Violence published in Canada in association with New Internationalist By Between the Lines.
This was a book I picked up for last October's Get Graphic readathon, didn't end up reading it because that was also Canadian Thanksgiving, but picked up again thanks to a comment from Alen Bacco asking about it. Because I'm totally not a horrible youtube who takes forever to reply to video comments (thank you social anxiety).
Reading through the entire work this time through however, I was able to forgive my previous struggle at least a little bit because the book really did improve the further in I dug.
Perhaps it was because the first essay was already written by one of the authors for this collection, but it was a pretty boring monologue delivered by a somewhat too punchable face. Nothing personal, perhaps it only speaks to the interest I took to the rest of the collection, but yes Brad Evan's Thinking Against Violence was the least interesting part and is unfortunately first.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the second piece in this collection is Hannah Arendt's The Banality of Evil. Which, much like the rest of this anthology, continues to be oh so relevant to day to day life.
Other philosphers/ideas covered in this collection include: Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth; Paulo Freire - The Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Michel Foucault - Society Must be Defended; Edward Said - Orientalism; Susan Sontag - Regarding the Pain of Others; Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent; Judith Butler - Precarious Lives; Giorgio Agamben - Sovereign Power/Bare Life. Illustrated in a consistent but varied black and white style by ones Inko, Chris Mackenzie, Carl Thompson, Robert Brown, Michiru Morakwa, and Yen Quach.
And if any of those concepts or names sound too high faluting, never fear! As many slightly uncomfortable reviewers on goodreads have pointed out, this is not actually a substitute for reading their actual work. Instead, this graphic anthology is a good introductory text to many names I keep hearing over and over again (but haven't actually read) that makes it much more likely I will eventually pick up their "actual" work. Because it's one thing to have people's names thrown at you from time to time, but this is like having a really smart, really nice, friend sit down with you and give you the tl:dr cliff notes on what these people had to say and why it's important.
Violence, what it is, who does it, should they do it, should we do it, is the state violent? Deconstructing and examining our ideas of violence is only becoming more important in current days. I would highly recommend this book to most people, unless you are much smarter than me and already read these people's original work.
This was a book I picked up for last October's Get Graphic readathon, didn't end up reading it because that was also Canadian Thanksgiving, but picked up again thanks to a comment from Alen Bacco asking about it. Because I'm totally not a horrible youtube who takes forever to reply to video comments (thank you social anxiety).
Reading through the entire work this time through however, I was able to forgive my previous struggle at least a little bit because the book really did improve the further in I dug.
Perhaps it was because the first essay was already written by one of the authors for this collection, but it was a pretty boring monologue delivered by a somewhat too punchable face. Nothing personal, perhaps it only speaks to the interest I took to the rest of the collection, but yes Brad Evan's Thinking Against Violence was the least interesting part and is unfortunately first.
Fortunately for the rest of us, the second piece in this collection is Hannah Arendt's The Banality of Evil. Which, much like the rest of this anthology, continues to be oh so relevant to day to day life.
Other philosphers/ideas covered in this collection include: Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth; Paulo Freire - The Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Michel Foucault - Society Must be Defended; Edward Said - Orientalism; Susan Sontag - Regarding the Pain of Others; Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent; Judith Butler - Precarious Lives; Giorgio Agamben - Sovereign Power/Bare Life. Illustrated in a consistent but varied black and white style by ones Inko, Chris Mackenzie, Carl Thompson, Robert Brown, Michiru Morakwa, and Yen Quach.
And if any of those concepts or names sound too high faluting, never fear! As many slightly uncomfortable reviewers on goodreads have pointed out, this is not actually a substitute for reading their actual work. Instead, this graphic anthology is a good introductory text to many names I keep hearing over and over again (but haven't actually read) that makes it much more likely I will eventually pick up their "actual" work. Because it's one thing to have people's names thrown at you from time to time, but this is like having a really smart, really nice, friend sit down with you and give you the tl:dr cliff notes on what these people had to say and why it's important.
Violence, what it is, who does it, should they do it, should we do it, is the state violent? Deconstructing and examining our ideas of violence is only becoming more important in current days. I would highly recommend this book to most people, unless you are much smarter than me and already read these people's original work.
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