Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

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.

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.