Description

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This thoroughly updated fourth edition of Critical Theory Today offers an accessible introduction to contemporary critical theory, providing in-depth coverage of the most common approaches to literary analysis today, including: feminism; psychoanalysis; Marxism; reader-response theory; New Criticism; structuralism and semiotics; deconstruction; new historicism and cultural criticism; lesbian, gay, and queer theory; African American criticism; and postcolonial criticism and ecocriticism.

This new edition features:

- A brand new chapter on ecocriticism, including sections on deep ecology, eco-Marxism, ecofeminism (including radical, Marxist, and vegetarian ecofeminisms), and postcolonial ecocriticism and environmental justice

- Considerable updates to the chapters on feminist theory, African American theory, postcolonial theory, and LGBTQ theories, including terminology and theoretical concepts

- An extended explanation of each theory, using examples from everyday life, popular culture, and a variety of literary texts

- A list of specific questions critics ask about literary texts

- An interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory

- A list of questions for further practice to guide readers in applying each theory to different literary works

- Updated and expanded bibliographies

Both engaging and rigorous, this is a "how-to" book for undergraduate and graduate students new to critical theory and for college professors who want to broaden their repertoire of critical approaches to literature.

About the Author

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Lois Tyson is Professor Emerita of English at Grand Valley State University, USA. She is author of Using Critical Theory: How to Read and Write about Literature and Psychological Politics of the American Dream: The Commodification of Subjectivity in Twentieth-Century American Literature.