“Renowned writer and critic Jeffrey R. Di Leo mucks out the Augean stables and explains the post-critical debris. With his philosopher’s edge, he cuts through global babble and delivers the best defense of humanism since Edward Said’s Humanism and Democratic Criticism.” —H. Aram Veeser, Professor of English, The City College of New York and Faculty, CUNY Graduate Center, USA.“This Is Not the End of Theory arrives at a critical moment for the humanities, beset by institutional pressures, political hostility, and the cascading demands of multiple intersecting crises, to make an urgent and uncompromising case for the continued necessity of theory. Ranging across disciplines, objects, and methods of inquiry, its essays reveal a field not in decline but in transformation, alive to new questions and possibilities. Philosophically serious and politically alert, this is an essential defense of critique, academic freedom, and the enduring stakes of thought itself.” —Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies, Kyung Hee University, South Korea.“This Is Not the End of Theory is a rich, accessible, and intellectually compelling contribution to the humanities. A rallying cry for theorists committed to the university as a critical space, it powerfully defends the importance of speaking truth to power in an era shaped by neoliberalism and postliberalism.” —Zahi Zalloua, Whitman College, USA."With astonishing breadth and striking lucidity, Jeffery Di Leo ranges over subjects as diverse as the death of the dictionary, writing in the age of ChatGPT, commercial forces in the academy, and academic forces in the marketplace. The mosaic that emerges demonstrates how theory is not only alive and actively shaping the world, but that it matters now more than ever. Anyone concerned about dark days in the humanities will find This Is Not the End of Theory an illuminating and energizing affirmation".—Steve Tomasula, University of Notre Dame, USA."Jeffrey R. Di Leo’s continued advocacy for the work of theory is unique in its practical focus on vitality as well as virtue as grounds for the legitimacy of the humanities. With great clarity and persuasiveness, the author’s invigorating call for “the pursuit of democratic values and critical citizenship” comes across as constitutive of intellectual labor and a thriving, just society."—Xavier Kalck, Professor of North American Literature at the University of Lille, France."This Is Not the End of Theory demonstrates why humanities education is so crucial to an intelligent citizenry. The author presents antitheory perspectives with clarity, balance, and intellectual rigor, while revealing the theoretical assumptions that underlie even antitheory positions".—Daniel T. O’Hara, Temple University, USA."In This is Not the End of Theory: Critical Perspectives on the Humanities in Dark Times, Jeffrey R. Di Leo offers a bold and timely rejoinder to decades of elegiac pronouncements about the fate of the humanities. Where earlier works such as The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School by Neil Postman and The End of Education: Toward Posthumanism by William V. Spanos diagnose the cultural and institutional crises of education, whether through Postman’s critique of technology or Spanos’s Heideggerian unmasking of Western metaphysics, Di Leo pushes the conversation forward, insisting not on an “end,” but on a transformation.Rather than mourning what has been lost, Di Leo interrogates the very rhetoric of endings that has come to dominate academic discourse. In doing so, he reframes theory not as a relic of late twentieth-century criticism, but as a living, adaptive practice uniquely equipped to confront the challenges of neoliberal governance, institutional austerity, and the politicization of knowledge. If Postman calls for new narratives to restore meaning to education, and Spanos exposes the philosophical limits of its foundations, Di Leo demonstrates how contemporary theory actively retools those narratives and foundations alike.With intellectual rigor and unmistakable urgency, This is Not the End of Theory becomes both critique and manifesto—a compelling argument that theory remains indispensable precisely because we inhabit “dark times.” For scholars, students, and defenders of the humanities, Di Leo’s work stands as a decisive intervention: not an elegy for what has ended, but a powerful affirmation of what persists, evolves, and still demands to be thought."— Professor Stanley Gontarski, Florida State University, USA."This is an exciting, lively, and varied collection that demonstrates the continuing relevance of theory in its many contemporary forms. Broadening its scope across disciplines and domains, the essays offer fresh perspectives on the humanities, literary theory, philosophy, AI, and more."— Professor Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, USA.
