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Diagramming Theory: Diagrammatic drawing as a method of close reading across disciplines

Dean Kenning, Kingston University

This paper will reflect on a diagram based pedagogical methodology which I use with student-participants in order to perform close readings of theoretical texts from various disciplines. I propose that an engagement and understanding of often dense theoretical texts can be facilitated through a hands-on diagramming process. I will offer several examples of workshops where various theoretical writings have been read and interpreted through a process of diagrammatic drawing. The texts examined range across philosophy, psychoanalysis, political theory, anthropology, economics and AI.

According to C.S. Peirce’s definition, a diagram is an ‘icon of relations’ – that is an icon whose parts are related in a way analogous to the way the parts of the object under consideration are related. When the object under consideration is a theoretical text, those parts and their relations consist of the subject matter, terms, ideas, concepts, processes, etc. which are presented, contrasted, explored and developed in the course of the argument. The linearly unfolding text, occurring in time over a number of pages, becomes, through the gestural, graphic action of the student-participant, a spatial, synoptic overview inscribed on a flat surface, but one also often replete with figuration, metaphorical imagery, and aesthetic aspects.

Active diagramming (as distinct from viewing someone else’s diagram, e.g. in a textbook) has great facility in the context of students engaging with difficult theoretical texts. This comes down to the dual function of diagrams to be both rigorous and open to creative invention. At the same time diagrams, combining text and pictures non-hierarchically, are an everyday mode of practical visual representation and don’t come with any pressure to be ‘good at art’. Whilst theoretical texts may be daunting for students (or anyone else), ‘reading through diagramming’ hands a level of creative agency to the reader, whilst demanding a very close reading if the diagrammer is to follow the argument through in their visual inscription. Utilizing this diagram-based method is one way to ensure that students have engaged at a concentrated level of attention with a text. At the same time, the goal is not to produce a ‘correct’ visual interpretation of the text; what is always interesting is the way in which each person’s diagram of the same text is entirely singular. Along with an interpretation and attempt at visual communication of the text, each diagram is also an index of a subjective, cognitive process of learning and mental effort. Worked through graphically in this way, the argument of the text is not only inscribed on paper, but leaves a more lasting impression on the participant.

Using examples from a number of student-participant diagrams, I will examine some specific ways in which non-experts, in constructing a diagram, can ‘read’ theoretical texts: draw out what is presented in terms of oppositions, classifications, branchings, reciprocal actions, events and non-visible determining factors beneath visible phenomena, etc. Furthermore, how participants draw on metaphors and figures within the text and invent original ones; also how they utilise colour and expressive line for sensual and semiotic effect.

Keywords: diagrams, diagramming, drawing, theory, art pedagogy