Figures of Interpretation

Breaks the constraints of traditional academic writing and provides an opportunity for a different kind of knowledge production

This ground-breaking book assembles 31 portraits of people who interpret languages, cultures, situations, institutions and people, and offers graphic interpretations of their collective experience. They tell a powerful story about the structure of contemporary society and the hierarchical distributions of power that permeate our lives.

This ground-breaking book assembles 31 portraits of people who interpret languages, cultures and situations, and offers graphic interpretations of their collective experience. Their individual stories are part of the larger history of interpreters, interpretation and interpretive readings, and they demonstrate how language intersects with race, class, gender and geopolitical inequalities. The book allows the unexpected to unfold by passing control from the writers to the reader, who will see connections and ruptures unfold between space, time and class while never losing sight of the materiality of living. Together and individually, the portraits tell a powerful story about the structure of contemporary society and the hierarchical distributions of power that permeate our lives.