James N. Powell, "Postmodernism for Beginners"

The For Beginners documentary comic book series has been around for many years in different forms and has sold over 1 million copies. With subjects ranging from philosophy, to politics, to art and beyond, the For Beginners series presents a range of familiar concepts in a comic book-styled, humorous and readily accessible manner that’s respective of the intelligence of its audience. This series is for those who want to know more about a subject, but don’t want to get bogged down in dry facts

If you are like most people, you’re not sure what Postmodernism is. And if this were like most books on the subject, it probably wouldn’t tell you. Besides what a few grumpy critics claim, Postmodernism is not a bunch of meaningless intellectual mind games. On the contrary, it is a reaction to the most profound spiritual and philosophical crises of our time–the failure of the Enlightenment. Jim Powell takes the position that Postmodernism is a series of “maps” that help people find their way through a changing world. Postmodernism For Beginners features the thoughts of Foucault on power and knowledge, Jameson on mapping the postmodern, Baudrillard on the media, Harvey on time-space compression, Derrida on deconstruction and Deleuze and Guattari on rhizomes. The book also discusses postmodern artifacts such as Madonna, cyberpunk sci-fi, Buddhist ecology and teledildonics.