Lois Tyson - Critical Theory Today_ A User-Friendly Guide-Routledge (2006) by jacdeep

Lois Tyson - Critical Theory Today_ A User-Friendly Guide-Routledge (2006)

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Critical Theory Preface for instructors Today: A User-Friendly Guide, Second Edition

this book can be used as the only text in a course or as a precursor to (or in tan‑ dem with) critical theory anthologies. Each chapter has grown out of classroom practice, has been thoroughly field tested, and has demonstrated its capacity to motivate students by showing them what critical theory can offer, not only in terms of their practical understanding of literary texts, but also in terms of their personal understanding of themselves and the world in which they live. In a very real sense, this textbook is a “how-to” manual for readers who will probably come to their study of theory with some anxiety, whether they are first-year theory students or college professors who wish to familiarize themselves with theoretical perspectives with which they have not yet become thoroughly acquainted. Chapters are sequenced for a specific pedagogical purpose: to demonstrate how critical theories both argue and overlap with one another, sometimes overturn‑ ing, sometimes building on the insights of competing theories. Nevertheless, each chapter is self-explanatory and was written to stand on its own. Therefore, this textbook can be customized to fit your own instructional needs by assign‑ ing the chapters in any order you choose; by eliminating some chapters entirely; or by assigning only certain sections of particular chapters, for which purpose chapter subtitles should prove helpful. Similarly, the “Questions for Further Practice” (which follow each reading of The Great Gatsby and can serve as paper topics) encourage students to apply each theory to other well-known, frequently anthologized literary works, but you can have your students apply these ques‑ tions to any works you select. However you choose to use Critical Theory Today, I hope you will agree that critical theory is a bus our students have every reason to climb aboard. And if this book does its job, they will even enjoy the ride.

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Lois Tyson - Critical Theory Today_ A User-Friendly Guide-Routledge (2006)

Articles inside

Index

For advanced readers

13 Gaining an overview

For further reading

The colony within: a postcolonial reading of The Great Gatsby Questions for further practice: postcolonial approaches to other

literary works

Some questions postcolonial critics ask about literary texts

Postcolonial criticism and literature

Postcolonial debates

Postcolonial identity

12 Postcolonial criticism

Questions for further practice: African American approaches to other literary works

The Great Gatsby

African American criticism and literature

Some questions African American critics ask about literary texts But where’s Harlem?: an African American reading of

Recent developments: critical race theory

Racial issues and African American literary history

Questions for further practice: lesbian, gay, and queer approaches to other literary works

11 African American criticism

of The Great Gatsby

texts

Some shared features of lesbian, gay, and queer criticism Some questions lesbian, gay, and queer critics ask about literary

Queer criticism

Gay criticism

10 Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism

Lesbian criticism

The marginalization of lesbians and gay men

For advanced readers

of The Great Gatsby

For further reading

Questions for further practice: new historical and cultural criticism of other literary works

Some questions new historical and cultural critics ask about literary texts The discourse of the self‑made man: a new historical reading

Cultural criticism and literature

New historicism and literature

New historicism

Cultural criticism

9 New historical and cultural criticism

Questions for further practice: deconstructive approaches to other literary works

a deconstructive reading of The Great Gatsby

Some questions deconstructive critics ask about literary texts “. . . the thrilling, returning trains of my youth . . .”:

A deconstructive reading of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”

Deconstructing literature

Deconstructing human identity

8 Deconstructive criticism

Deconstructing language

Deconstructing our world

For advanced readers

For further reading

Questions for further practice: structuralist approaches to other literary works

of The Great Gatsby

Some questions structuralist critics ask about literary texts “Seek and ye shall find”. . . and then lose: a structuralist reading

The structure of narrative (narratology

The structure of literary interpretation

The structure of literary genres

Structuralism and literature

Semiotics

Structural anthropology

7 Structuralist criticism

Structural linguistics

For advanced readers

For further reading

to other literary works

Projecting the reader: a reader‑response analysis of The Great Gatsby Questions for further practice: reader‑response approaches

Some questions reader‑response critics ask about literary texts

Defining readers

Social reader‑response theory

Psychological reader‑response theory

Affective stylistics

Subjective reader‑response theory

Transactional reader‑response theory

6 Reader‑response criticism

For advanced readers

The single best interpretation

New Criticism as intrinsic, objective criticism

A New Critical reading of “There Is a Girl Inside”

Literary language and organic unity

“The text itself”

reading of The Great Gatsby