Since its publication in 1990, Critical Terms for Literary Study has become a landmark introduction to
the work of literary theory--giving tens of thousands of students an unparalleled encounter with what it means
to do theory and criticism. Significantly expanded, this new edition features six new chapters that confront, in
different ways, the growing understanding of literary works as cultural practices.
These six new chapters are "Popular Culture," "Diversity," "Imperialism/Nationalism,"
"Desire," "Ethics," and "Class," by John Fiske, Louis Menand, Seamus Deane, Judith
Butler, Geoffrey Galt Harpham, and Daniel T. O'Hara, respectively. Each new essay adopts the approach that has
won this book such widespread acclaim: each provides a concise history of a literary term, critically explores
the issues and questions the term raises, and then puts theory into practice by showing the reading strategies
the term permits.
Exploring the concepts that shape the way we read, the essays combine to provide an extraordinary introduction
to the work of literature and literary study, as the nation's most distinguished scholars put the tools of critical
practice vividly to use.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction, Thomas McLaughlin
I: Literature as Writing
1: Representation, W. J. T. Mitchell 2: Structure, John Carlos Rowe 3: Writing, Barbara Johnson 4: Discourse, Paul A. Bove 5: Narrative, J. Hillis Miller 6: Figurative Language, Thomas McLaughlin 7: Performance, Henry Sayre 8: Author, Donald E. Pease
II: Interpretation
9: Interpretation, Steven Mailloux 10: Intention, Annabel Patterson 11: Unconscious, Francoise Meltzer 12: Determinacy/Indeterminacy, Gerald Graff 13: Value/Evaluation, Barbara Herrnstein Smith 14: Influence, Louis A. Renza 15: Rhetoric, Stanley Fish
III: Literature, Culture, Politics
16: Culture, Stephen Greenblatt
17: Canon, John Guillory
18: Literary History, Lee Patterson
19: Gender, Myra Jehlen 20: Race, Kwame Anthony Appiah 21: Ethnicity, Werner Sollors 22: Ideology, James H. Kavanagh 23: Popular Culture, John Fiske
24: Diversity, Louis Menand
25: Imperialism/Nationalism, Seamus Deane 26: Desire, Judith Butler 27: Ethics, Geoffrey Galt Harpham
28: Class, Daniel T. O'Hara
In Place of an Afterword - Someone Reading, Frank Lentricchia References
List of Contributors Index
