JEFFREY R. DI LEO is Professor of English and Philosophy at the University of Houston-Victoria, USA. He is Editor of the journal symploke, and Executive Director of the Society for Critical Exchange and its Winter Theory Institute. His recent publications include The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory (Bloomsbury, 2019), What’s Wrong with Antitheory? (Bloomsbury, 2020), Vinyl Theory (2020), Happiness (2023), Selling the Humanities (2023), Dark Academe: Capitalism, Theory, and the Death Drive in Higher Education (2024), Out of Print (2024), and Theory as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025).

• Introduction 1 Early Theory 1.0 Introduction1.1 Humanism 1.2 Rhetoric (or, the Quarrel Between Rhetoric and Philosophy)1.3 Hermeneutics1.4 Aestheticism1.5 New Criticism2 Structuralism and Semiotics 2.0 Introduction2.1 Structure of the Sign (or, Saussure and Peirce)2.2 Russian formalism2.3 Roland Barthes2.4 Claude Lévi-Strauss 2.5 Narratology3 Marxism 3.0 Introduction3.1 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels3.2 The Adorno-Benjamin Debate 3.3 Mikhail Bakhtin3.4 Louis Althusser3.5 Fredric Jameson 4 Psychoanalytic Theory 4.0 Introduction4.1 Sigmund Freud4.2 Jacques Lacan4.3 Harold Bloom4.4 Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze4.5 Slavoj Žižek 5 Poststructuralism 5.0 Introduction5.1 Jacques Derrida5.2 Julia Kristeva5.3 Jean-François Lyotard5.4 Jean Baudrillard5.5 New Historicism6 Feminist Theory 6.0 Introduction6.1 First Wave 6.2 Second Wave6.3 Third Wave and Beyond6.4 Hélène Cixous6.5 Luce Irigaray 7 LGBTQ+ Theory 7.0 Introduction7.1 Lesbian and Gay Theory7.2 Lesbian Feminism7.3 Judith Butler7.4 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick7.5 Trans* Theory8 Race and Justice 8.0 Introduction8.1 Critical Race Theory8.2 Law and Literature8.3 Human Rights8.4 Intersectionality8.5 Subaltern Studies9 Biopolitics 9.0 Introduction9.1 Michel Foucault9.2 Giorgio Agamben 9.3 Michael Hart and Antonio Negri 9.4 Surveillance Studies 9.5 Disability Studies10 Globalization 10.0 Introduction10.1 Postcolonial Theory10.2 Border Studies10.3 Neoliberalism10.4 Translation10.5 World Literature and Theory11 Ecocriticism 11.0 Introduction11.1 Green Theory11.2 Critical Climate Change11.3 Anthropocene 11.4 Geocriticism11.5 Blue Humanities12 Posthumanism 12.0 Introduction12.1 Cyborg Theory12.2 Animal Studies12.3 Systems Theory12.4 Cognitive Criticism12.5 Speculative Realism13 Affect Studies 13.0 Introduction13.1 Queer Affect13.2 Materialism13.3 Presentism13.4 Trauma Theory13.5 Holocaust Studies14 Pop Culture 14.0 Introduction14.1 Cultural Studies14.2 Media Studies14.3 Sound Studies14.4 Game Studies14.5 Celebrity Studies15 Against Theory 15.0 Introduction15.1 Antitheory15.2 Posttheory15.3 Object-Oriented Ontology15.4 Postcritique15.5 New New CriticismNotesIndex

In its scope and ambition, this is a groundbreaking and authoritative reference work that will both define the field and provide an enduring point of orientation. Rich and always accessible, it is an invaluable guide for anyone interested in the study of contemporary literary theory.