John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory

August 21, 2008 1:39 PM

Who said structuralism was dead? John Curran posts Great Diagrams in Anthropology, Linguistics, and Social Theory - an illustrated assortment of sociology's greatest hits, arranged neatly for your viewing pleasure.
posted by puckish (15 comments total)

This is a seriously awesome post.

Since I have nothing cogent to add, I'm going to go ahead and dumb this down a notch by saying that whenever I see mention of "Great Diagrams" on the web, I think of this.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:42 PM on August 21, 2008

Nice to see Gary Larson represented, whose many contributions to these fields often go sadly unnoticed and unmentioned.
posted by echo target at 1:59 PM on August 21, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Larson's cartoon is even funnier if you know somebody on the examined side of the anthropological equation. I've been told by multiple First Nations peeps that lying to scientists is big time Indian entertainment and that they tell lies and than brag when they show up in the literature. Of course they were probably pulling my leg.
posted by srboisvert at 2:10 PM on August 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

It is awesome, but it isn't all that erudite. Attribution appears a bit careless.

For example, the "six functions of language" diagram, while it is reprinted in Schiffrin 2006 as labeled, first appeared (and very famously so) in Roman Jakobson's 1960 article "Linguistics and Poetics." That's only the first one I looked at because I recognized it immediately from the thumbnail -- it's that famous.

Not getting that citation right means you don't really know the history of structuralism. Jakobson 1960 is perhaps the most cited paper in the history of structural linguistics.

Still, a cool resource.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:24 PM on August 21, 2008

Also, that Gary Larson cartoon was on the office door of every creaky old professor in my anthropology PhD program about 20 years ago. We thought it was pretty lame then. Now it's downright archaic.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:25 PM on August 21, 2008

Amazing first post
posted by destro at 3:00 PM on August 21, 2008

This is my favorite: grid and group. Hmm, I'm not an anthropologist myself, but apparently grid varies directly with group. Unless that's an algorithmic scale.
posted by salvia at 4:20 PM on August 21, 2008

Fabulous. Thanks for this.
posted by painquale at 4:55 PM on August 21, 2008

Those are surprisingly interesting. I love the elegantly lean aesthetic of many of them. Quiet little geometries of meaning.

Indexed (Jessica Hagy) is the Roz Chast of anthropological diagrams.
posted by nickyskye at 5:50 PM on August 21, 2008

Very interesting; thanks, puckish!
posted by carter at 6:28 PM on August 21, 2008

Who said structuralism was dead?

Derrida?
posted by spiderwire at 6:54 PM on August 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Whether or not it clarified anything, I've always been in enamored by this chart
posted by bodywithoutorgans at 8:35 PM on August 21, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This is off topic, but it seems like very few people who contribute to GraphJam actually understand Venn diagrams. Why is this?
posted by Dr. Send at 9:17 PM on August 21, 2008

Whether or not it clarified anything, I've always been in enamored by this chart

Deleuze Cube is Above God. There is no organs, only ZERO ORGAN BODY.

1-Capital to labour is 24 hour rotation.
2-Signifier to signified is 24 hour rotation.
3-Structure to agency is 24 hour rotation.
4-Neurosis to psychosis is 24 hour rotation.

YOU ARE DETERRITORIALISED STUPID BY KILLER "CAPITAL" DESPOTIC BODY OF DESIRING-PRODUCTION. Deleuze Cube reveals all humanity in Single Subject Constant Creation with perfect univocity & chaosmos.

-Gilles Deleuze, Rhizomatic & Wisest Human
posted by stammer at 12:01 AM on August 22, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Personally, I've always been partial to Lacan's Graph of desire.
posted by daniel_charms at 3:35 AM on August 22, 2008