It has held sway in the humanities for nearly four decades, surviving even the great culture wars. But it is being used in surprising ways. Either literary theory is dead, or it’s invincible. It all ...

Anyone who has taught a college literature course has likely heard a student say, “Can’t I just enjoy the book?” This frustration with literary theory is common. Many undergraduates feel that theory ...

The subject was dirt, or perhaps I should say “Dirt.” It was spring 1996, and I was a newly minted comp-lit Ph.D. candidate thrilled to be taking part in my first academic conference. Okay, it was a ...

Bringing together Mary Klages's bestselling introductory books Literary Theory: A Guide for the Perplexed and Key Terms in Literary Theory into one fully integrated and substantially revised, expanded ...

Fredric Jameson, who died this week at age 90, was one of the last high theorists still standing. A key figure in the development of Marxist criticism, postmodernism and cultural theory, his works ...

In the low-budget realm of humanities grantmaking, a University of Virginia press release this May came as a shock. The Danish National Research Foundation had awarded roughly $4.2 million to a ...

This course introduces students to a wide range of critical theories that English majors need to know. We’ll begin with some basic questions about literary texts: How can we understand documents from ...