Re-Thinking Theory: A Critique of Contemporary Literary Theory and an Alternative Account

Re-thinking Theory offers a bold approach to literary studies, itself explicitly theoretical and yet making a searching critique of the modes, concepts and movements which comprise literary theory. Discussing key concepts such as ideology, signification and discourse, and analysing schools including that of F. R. Leavis, Althusserian Marxism, Derridean and Foucaultian poststructuralism, and New Historicism, the authors argue that there are major deficiencies in the conceptual foundations an...