Street Smarts and Critical Theory

[Dave Monroe]

Street Smarts and Critical Theory
Listening to the Vernacular
Thomas McLaughlin


Everybody's got a theory . . . or do they?

Thomas McLaughlin argues that critical theory—raising serious,
sustained questions about cultural practice and ideology—is practiced
not only by an academic elite but also by savvy viewers of sitcoms and
tv news, by Elvis fans and Trekkies, by labor organizers and school
teachers, by the average person in the street.

Like academic theorists, who are trained in a tradition of
philosophical and political skepticism that challenges all
orthodoxies, the vernacular theorists McLaughlin identifies display a
lively and healthy alertness to contradiction and propaganda. They are
not passive victims of ideology but active questioners of the belief
systems that have power over their lives. Their theoretical work
arises from the circumstances they confront on the job, in the family,
in popular culture. And their questioning of established institutions,
McLaughlin contends, is essential and healthy, for it energizes other
theorists who clarify the purpose and strategies of institutions and
justify the existence of cultural practices.

Street Smarts and Critical Theory   leads us through eye-opening
explorations of social activism in the Southern Christian
anti-pornography movement, fan critiques in the 'zine scene, New Age
narratives of healing and transformation, the methodical manipulations
of the advertising profession, and vernacular theory in the
whole-language movement. Emphasizing that theory is itself a pervasive
cultural practice, McLaughlin calls on academic institutions to
recognize and develop the theoretical strategies that students bring
into the classroom.

[...]

November 1996
192 pp.      none     6 x 9
ISBN 0-299-15170-0   Cloth $45S
ISBN 0-299-15174-3   Paper $17.95T

http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/0149.htm

Street Smarts and Critical Theory: Listening to the Vernacular
By Thomas McLaughlin
Published by Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1996
ISBN 0299151700, 9780299151706
182 pages


http://books.google.com/books?id=uPICOPLCdfcC