Literary and Critical Theory

New Titles and Key Backlist

Routledge's Literary and Critical Theory books offer everything you could need from textbooks to research monographs. Take a look at Using Critical Theory, Lois Tyson’s introductory guide to the field, or The Routledge Queer Studies Reader, a comprehensive resource and textbook to this vibrant and interdisciplinary area. You can also see our extensive range of research and reference including the Routledge Companions series.

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  1. Women, Murder, and Equity in Early Modern England

    By Randall Martin

    Series: Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture

    This book presents the first comprehensive study of over 120 printed news reports of murders and infanticides committed by early modern women. It offers an interdisciplinary analysis of female homicide in post-Reformation news formats ranging from ballads to newspapers. Individual cases are...

    Published October 9th 2012 by Routledge

  2. The Routledge Queer Studies Reader

    Edited by Donald Hall, Annamarie Jagose

    Series: Routledge Literature Readers

    The Routledge Queer Studies Reader provides a comprehensive resource for students and scholars working in this vibrant and interdisciplinary field. The book traces the emergence and development of Queer Studies as a field of scholarship, presenting key critical essays alongside more recent...

    Published May 30th 2012 by Routledge

  3. Politics and Aesthetics in The Diary of Virginia Woolf

    By Joanne Tidwell

    Series: Studies in Major Literary Authors

    In this critical study, Tidwell examines the conflict of aesthetics and politics in The Diary of Virginia Woolf. As a modernist writer concerned with contemporary aesthetic theories, Woolf experimented with limiting the representative nature of writing. At the same time, as a feminist, Woolf wanted...

    Published February 22nd 2012 by Routledge

  4. Aesthetic Hysteria

    The Great Neurosis in Victorian Melodrama and Contemporary Fiction

    By Ankhi Mukherjee

    Series: Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory

    Aesthetic Hysteria is a deconstructive psychoanalytic study of hysteria, using literary texts to foreground a telling encounter between two growing discourses within English studies: that of emotion/affect and trauma studies. It brings together several academic foci - the history of medicine,...

    Published November 15th 2011 by Routledge

  5. The Politics and Poetics of Camp

    Edited by Morris Meyer

    The Politics and Poetics of Camp is a radical reappraisal of the meaning and discourse of camp. The contributors look at both the meaning and the uses of camp performance, and ask: is camp a style, or a witty but nonetheless powerful cultural critique? The essays investigate camp from its early...

    Published November 10th 2011 by Routledge

  6. The Family in English Children’s Literature

    By Ann Alston

    Series: Children's Literature and Culture

    From the trials of families experiencing divorce, as in Anne Fine’s Madame Doubtfire, to the childcare problems highlighted in Jacqueline Wilson’s Tracy Beaker, it might seem that the traditional family and the ideals that accompany it have long vanished. However, in The Family in English Children’...

    Published October 4th 2011 by Routledge

  7. Robinson Crusoe's Economic Man

    A Construction and Deconstruction

    Edited by Ulla Grapard, Gillian Hewitson

    Series: Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy

    In this book, economists and literary scholars examine the uses to which the Robinson Crusoe figure has been put by the economics discipline since the publication of Defoe’s novel in 1719. The authors’ critical readings of two centuries of texts that have made use of Robinson Crusoe undermine the...

    Published June 1st 2011 by Routledge

  8. Bodies That Matter

    On the Discursive Limits of Sex

    By Judith Butler

    Series: Routledge Classics

    In Bodies That Matter, renowned theorist and philosopher Judith Butler argues that theories of gender need to return to the most material dimension of sex and sexuality: the body. Butler offers a brilliant reworking of the body, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of...

    Published April 3rd 2011 by Routledge

  9. Iris Murdoch, Gender and Philosophy

    By Sabina Lovibond

    Iris Murdoch was one of the best-known philosophers and novelists of the post-war period. In this book, Sabina Lovibond explores the tangled issue of Murdoch's stance towards gender and feminism, drawing upon the evidence of her fiction, philosophy, and other public statements. As well as...

    Published March 27th 2011 by Routledge

  10. History in the Discursive Condition

    Reconsidering the Tools of Thought

    By Elizabeth Ermarth

    In this bold new book, Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth traces the broadly established challenges to modernity that now confront historians and citizens of Western societies generally. She puts forward a clear definition of both The Modern Condition and of The Discursive Condition that challenges it,...

    Published March 23rd 2011 by Routledge

  11. Political Language and Metaphor

    Interpreting and changing the world

    Edited by Terrell Carver, Jernej Pikalo

    Series: Routledge Innovations in Political Theory

    Until a century ago, a metaphor was just a mere figure of speech, but since the development of discourse analysis a metaphor has become more than merely incidental to the content of the arguments or findings. Students and scholars in political studies know the importance of metaphors in electoral...

    Published February 1st 2011 by Routledge

  12. Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the Queerness of Children's Literature

    By Tison Pugh

    Series: Children's Literature and Culture

    Innocence, Heterosexuality, and the Queerness of Children’s Literature examines distinguished classics of children’s literature both old and new—including L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of...

    Published December 13th 2010 by Routledge

  13. Sexuality

    2nd Edition

    By Joseph Bristow

    Series: The New Critical Idiom

    Theories of sexuality and desire are commonly used in literary and cultural studies. In this illuminating study Joseph Bristow introduces readers to the fundamental critical debates surrounding the topic. This fully updated second edition includes: a historical account of sexuality from the...

    Published November 25th 2010 by Routledge

  14. Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall

    Ideology, Conflict, and Aesthetics

    By Les Brookes

    Series: Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature

    The conflict between assimilationism and radicalism that has riven gay culture since Stonewall became highly visible in the 1990s with the emergence and challenge of queer theory and politics. The conflict predates Stonewall, however—indeed, Jonathan Dollimore describes it as "one of the most...

    Published January 25th 2010 by Routledge

  15. Modernist Aesthetics and Consumer Culture in the Writings of Oscar Wilde

    By Paul Fortunato

    Series: Studies in Major Literary Authors

    Oscar Wilde was a consumer modernist. His modernist aesthetics drove him into the heart of the mass culture industries of 1890s London, particularly the journalism and popular theatre industries. Wilde was extremely active in these industries: as a journalist at the Pall Mall Gazette; as magazine...

    Published June 15th 2009 by Routledge

  16. Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory

    Edited by Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace

    "Schools with strong women's studies programs will find this an invaluable source for understanding the foundations of feminist literary theory." -- HE Bookwatch "The range of topics covered in this single volume is impressive. Overall, the Encyclopedia would make a good addition to any reference...

    Published June 4th 2009 by Routledge

  17. Reading Sexualities

    Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies

    By Donald E. Hall

    Reading Sexualities confronts the reigning practices, priorities, and preoccupations of queer theory and sexuality studies. Looking at a range of texts, from novels to travel narratives to internet porn, Donald E. Hall deftly weaves the theoretical with the literary in order to: examine the...

    Published February 26th 2009 by Routledge

  18. Genders

    2nd Edition

    By David Glover, Cora Kaplan

    Series: The New Critical Idiom

    The concept of gender continues to be a central issue in literary and cultural studies, with a significance that crosses disciplinary boundaries and provokes lively debate. In this fully revised and updated second edition, David Glover and Cora Kaplan offer a lucid and illuminating introduction to...

    Published December 10th 2008 by Routledge

  19. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

    By Jason Edwards

    Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers

    Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was one of the most significant literary theorists of the last forty years and a key figure in contemporary queer theory. In this engaging and inspiring guide, Jason Edwards: introduces and explains key terms such as affects, the first person, homosocialities, and queer...

    Published August 26th 2008 by Routledge

  20. Gender and Modernism: Critical Concepts 4 vols

    Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies

    Edited by Bonnie Kime Scott

    Series: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies

    Modernism, whether seen as a period designation, a manifestation of formal experimentation, or an aspect of modernity, has since its inception been marked, consciously or unconsciously, by gender. The dates 1890-1940, typically accepted as encompassing the modernist period, coincide with the first...

    Published March 18th 2008 by Routledge