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.

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.

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.

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.

This introduction to feminist literary criticism in its international contexts discusses a broad range of complex critical writings and then identifies and explains the main developments and debates within each approach. Each chapter has an easy-to-use format, comprising an introductory overview, an explanation of key themes and techniques, a detailed account of the work of specific critics, and a summary which includes critiques of the approach. Each chapter is accompanied by a guide to the primary texts and further reading.

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.