Leitch argues for the use of poststructural theory in cultural criticism. He maintains that deconstruction remains crucial for a truly critical approach to cultural studies.

"Post-Theory, Culture, Criticism offers a collection of essays that provide provocative re-articulations of theory, culture and criticism. It contains distinguished and original work by a number of leading and emerging figures within cultural and critical theory and cultural studies who believe that all of the above is in urgent need of theoretical and practical exploration. In probing the feasibility and desirability of theory's re-articulation, the essays demonstrate that theory can only reinvent itself as worthwhile 'post-theory' through its own critical self-revaluation."--Jacket.

More than 450 succinct entries from A to Z help readers make sense of the interdisciplinary knowledge of cultural criticism that includes film, psychoanalytic, deconstructive, poststructuralist, and postmodernist theory as well as philosophy, media studies, linguistics.

Post-Theories in Literary and Cultural Studies focuses on the shifting paradigms in literary and cultural studies. Prompted by the changes and problems on the global scale, the last two decades have seen a resurgence of scholarly interest in theories which are more embedded in the social realities and human condition. This volume shows that theory can reinvent theory and re-define criticism according to the demands of the new millennium. In this context, it examines new ways of considering the relation of post-theory to the concepts such as ethics, aesthetics, truth, value, authenticity, human, and reality to understand the mindset of the new century. This volume presents the various suggestions and concerns of post-theoretical studies that reflect the sensibilities of the contemporary social and cultural life. The book is a source of reference to develop an understanding of this change of attitude in post-theoretical studies towards a more directly and sincerely responsive approach to the current problems worldwide, their representations in literature and language, reflections in theory, roots in socio-political domains, and effects on the material reality.

Professor Belsey explains the views of recent theorists, including Jean-François Lyotard, Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek, in order to take issue with their accounts of what it is to be human.

-- American Literature

Offers readable case studies in postmodern economics, philosophy, literary criticism, feminism, pedagogy, poetry, painting, historiography, and cultural studies, showing disorganization as characteristic of postmodern times.

The Terms of Cultural Criticism enters into lively debate with three highly influential schools of thought, reflecting on ways in which Enlightenment precepts, rather than being fundamentally mistaken, have historically miscarried.

An extension of conversations that originally took place at summer institutes devoted to literary theory (sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English), this book presents diverse critical perspectives on current topics of literature, such as post-structuralism, cultural criticism, reader-response theory, and issues of gender and canon. Articles, listed with their authors, are as follows: (1) "Literature and Authority" (Myra Jehlen); (2) "A Short Course in Post-Structuralism" (Jane Tompkins); (3) "The Turns of Reader-Response Criticism" (Steven Mailloux); (4) "The Master's Pieces: On Canon Formation and the Afro-American Tradition" (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.); (5) "Authority, Desire, and Canons: Tendentious Meditations on Cultural Literacy" (James C. Raymond); (6) "Our Missing Theory" (Janet Emig); (7) "A Passage into Critical Theory" (Steven Lynn); (8) "Contrarieties of Emotion, or, Five Days with 'Pride and Prejudice'" (Walker Gibson); (9) "Feminism, Deconstruction, and the Universal: A Case Study on 'Walden'" (Irene C. Goldman); (10) "Professor, Why Are You Wasting Our Time?" (Warren Rosenberg); (11) "Delivering on the Promise of Liberal Education" (Joel Wingard); (12) "Teaching Literature in the Post-Structuralist Era: A Classroom Teacher's Agenda" (Lloyd N. Dendinger); (13) "Dispatching 'Porphyria's Lover'" (Joseph Dupras); (14) "Reading 'Life in the Iron-Mills' Contextually: A Key to Rebecca Harding Davis's Fiction" (Jane Atteridge Rose); (15) "Local Canons: Professing Literature at the Small Liberal Arts College" (Bobby Fong); (16) "The Structuralist Community College Student in a Post-Structuralist Age: (Judy Arnold and Benjamin S. Howard); and (17) "Gender Differences: Both/And, Not Either/Or" (Nancy Vogel). (KEH)