Unsurpassed as a text for upper-division and beginning graduate students, Raman Selden's classic text is the liveliest, most readable and most reliable guide to contemporary literary theory. Includes applications of theory, cross-referenced to Selden's companion volume, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature.

The fifth edition of this reader's guide remains true to the ideals of previous editions, providing a concise guide to contemporary literary theories. The book covers a vast range of differing forms of English literature.

Unsurpassed as a text for upper-division and beginning graduate students, Raman Selden's classic text is the liveliest, most readable and most reliable guide to contemporary literary theory. Includes applications of theory, cross-referenced to Selden's companion volume, Practicing Theory and Reading Literature.

Critical Theory Today is the essential introduction to contemporary criticial theory. It provides clear, simple explanations and concrete examples of complex concepts, making a wide variety of commonly used critical theories accessible to novices without sacrificing any theoretical rigor or thoroughness. This new edition provides in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today: feminism, psychoanalysis, Marxism, reader-response theory, new criticism, structuralism and semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, cultural criticism, lesbian/gay/queer theory, African American criticism, and postcolonial criticism. The chapters provide an extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and literary texts; a list of specific questions critics who use that theory ask about literary texts; an interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory; a list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works; and a bibliography of primary and secondary works for further reading.

Engagements with Contemporary Literary and Critical Theory is a wide-ranging but accessible introduction to the key thinkers and theories integral to the study of literature. Organized thematically, the book provides historical introductions and uses a variety of relevant contemporary examples to illuminate the field. Evan Gottlieb contextualizes the latest developments with regard to forms; discourses; subjectivities and embodiments; media, networks, and machines; and animals, affects, objects, and environments. Each chapter elucidates its concepts through in-depth discussions of major contemporary theorists, including Giorgio Agamben, Sara Ahmed, and Catherine Malabou, and uses engaging examples from a canonical novel, a contemporary text, and a new-media artifact to demonstrate theoretical applications. Additional text boxes regularly introduce emerging or overlooked theorists of interest, including Fred Moten and Sianne Ngai. An ideal guide for students of literary and critical theory, this book will give readers the background they need to continue their own explorations of this vibrant field of study.

Introduces readers to the modes of literary and cultural study of the previous half century A Companion to Literary Theory is a collection of 36 original essays, all by noted scholars in their field, designed to introduce the modes and ideas of contemporary literary and cultural theory. Arranged by topic rather than chronology, in order to highlight the relationships between earlier and most recent theoretical developments, the book groups its chapters into seven convenient sections: I. Literary Form: Narrative and Poetry; II. The Task of Reading; III. Literary Locations and Cultural Studies; IV. The Politics of Literature; V. Identities; VI. Bodies and Their Minds; and VII. Scientific Inflections. Allotting proper space to all areas of theory most relevant today, this comprehensive volume features three dozen masterfully written chapters covering such subjects as: Anglo-American New Criticism; Chicago Formalism; Russian Formalism; Derrida and Deconstruction; Empathy/Affect Studies; Foucault and Poststructuralism; Marx and Marxist Literary Theory; Postcolonial Studies; Ethnic Studies; Gender Theory; Freudian Psychoanalytic Criticism; Cognitive Literary Theory; Evolutionary Literary Theory; Cybernetics and Posthumanism; and much more. Features 36 essays by noted scholars in the field Fills a growing need for companion books that can guide readers through the thicket of ideas, systems, and terminologies Presents important contemporary literary theory while examining those of the past The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Literary Theory will be welcomed by college and university students seeking an accessible and authoritative guide to the complex and often intimidating modes of literary and cultural study of the previous half century.

The first reader and introductory guide to literary theory—includes close readings and a full glossary and bibliography Literary Theories is the first reader and introductory guide in one volume. Divided into 12 sections covering structuralism, feminism, marxism, reader-response theory, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, post-structuralism, postmodernism, new historicism, postcolonialism, gay studies and queer theory, and cultural studies, Literary Theories introduces the reader to the most challenging and engaging aspects of critical studies in the humanities today. Classic essays representing the different theoretical positions and offering striking examples of close readings of literature are preceded by new introductions which present the theory in question and discuss its main currents. With a full glossary and detailed bibliography, Literary Theories is the perfect introductory guide and reader in one volume. Included are essays by Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Homi K. Bhabha, Judith Butler, Terry Castle, Iain Chambers, Rey Chow, Paul de Man, Jacques Derrida, Jonathan Dollimore, Terry Eagleton, Catherine Gallagher, Stephen Heath, Wolfgang Iser, Fredric Jameson, Hans Robert Jauss, Claire Kahane, Gail Ching Liang Low, Mary Lydon, Jean-François Lyotard, James M. Mellard, D.A. Miller, J. Hillis Miller, Louis Adrian Montrose, Michael Riffaterre, Avital Ronell, Nicholas Royle, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Alan Sinfield, and Raymond Williams.