10. 1 READ ME FIRST (Andrew R. J. Yeaman)

10. 1. 1 How Chapter 10 Is Written

Form follows function in this chapter's intellectual commitment to the uncertainty of postmodern and poststructural theory. The postmodernism section makes this rationale explicit. Two invited essays follow and form the central part of the chapter. Their themes are broad but interrelated: Realism and the Symbolic: Two Ways of Knowing, and Poststructural Feminism and Research in Educational Communications and Technology. Although some readers will have, for example, prior knowledge of Foucault or Derrida, the last main section, Postmodern and Poststructural Theory: Version 1.0, refers to original sources and to authoritative collections. A short, concluding essay by the first author offers a summarizing contemporaneous perspective: Envoi.

10.1.2 How to Read Chapter 10

The sections of this chapter address deep subjects, but there is no intention of simplifying the complexity of those subjects. In no way is it suggested that readers lack sophistication and need some special sort of help in comprehension. Nevertheless, readers should be cautioned about the presence of metaphorical language in addition to the literal language more common throughout this handbook. The authors each write with their own words, and there should be no assumption that any précis can replace original work. Important ethical topics are marked out, but limits are not imposed on further research regarding social responsibility. There is no progressive development in exposition, and the sequence of the four middle sections as a narrative trope should be disregarded. Their postmodern, poststructural insights repeatedly demonstrate relevance to the future of theory and research in educational communications and technology.