Contemporary Literary & Cultural Theory ─ The Johns Hopkins Guide

This text is a comprehensive reference on major literary critics and other figures in critical theory, schools, and theoretical projects. The alphabetically organized entries offer a passing understanding for those wishing to explore everything from ecocriticism to cultural studies in four anglophone contexts to deconstructionism's fascist imbroglio with Paul de Man. Like some dictionaries devoted to a discipline or particular thinker, this text uses special notation to reference itself, though the entries are considerably longer. This gives the reader a more contextual understanding than a typical primer or anthology. At the end of each entry are notes for further reading. The contributors are professors of English and related fields; the contributor list in the back also functions as an index for their names. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Michael Groden is a distinguished university professor of English at the University of Western Ontario. Martin Kreiswirth is a professor of English and associate provost, dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies at McGill University. Imre Szeman is a professor of English and film studies and Canada research chair of cultural studies at the University of Alberta.