Critical Theory in the narrow sense designates several generations of German philosophers and social theorists in the Western European Marxist tradition known as the Frankfurt School. Instead, critical theory tries to examine what types of questions we should pose about literary works. Critical theory reading list! 87 Texts Every Critical Theorist Needs to Read. Rhetoric and philosophy both seek to study and understand the nature of human thought and how those thoughts are conveyed. The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots as far back as ancient Greece (Aristotle’s Poetics is an often cited early example), ancient India (Bharata Muni’s Natya Shastra), ancient Rome (Longinus’s On the Sublime) and medieval Iraq (Al-Jahiz’s al-Bayan wa-‘l-tabyinand al-Hayawan, and ibn al-Mu’tazz’s Kitab al-Badi). In history, major critical theories abound. Felix Weil’s father, Herman, made his fortune by exporting grain from Argentina to Europe. In addition, postmodernism, feminism, and postcolonialism have greatly influenced how critical theories have grown and expanded to challenge a greater number of social power structures. Literary Theories: A Sampling of Critical Lenses Literary theories were developed as a means to understand the various ways people read texts. Maintaining that ideologyis the pri… It is not meant to be exhaustive, of course, as that would require listing thousands and thousands of sources now, most of which we have obviously not read. 1. CRITICAL THEORY. This handbook grants the reader access to the tradition and the core concepts and approaches of critical theory. Critical theories provide a specific framework of perspective for interpreting texts, politics, religion, events, the natural world, human development and behavior -- whatever the subject of inquiry is. If you're interested in knowing more, see the Purdue Online Writing Lab or OWL or read Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, by Louis Tyson. By the early 1990s, the popularity of “theory” as a subject of interest by itself was declining slightly even as the texts of literary theory were incorporated into the study of almost all literature. Structuralism/Semiotics (1920s-present) 7. The Critical Race Theory training was exposed by Christopher Rufo, a contributing editor for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.. In ancient times, Greek scholars took materialist and philosophical approaches to understanding and preserving historical contexts. Below is a list of sources that we have found valuable for understanding Critical Race Theory, mostly from within, though some sources that are critical of it are included as well. Formalism, an example of aesthetic criticism, examines and critiques the inherent qualities of a literary text, while reducing or minimizing its historical, political or cultural contexts. According to these theorists, a critical theory may be distinguished from a traditional theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human emancipation from slavery, acts as a liber… Several versions of critical theory exist, but all explain crime in terms of group differences in power. Even among those listed below, combine methods from more than one of these approaches (for instance, the deconstructive approach of Paul de Man drew on a long tradition of close reading pioneered by the New Critics, and de Man was trained in the European hermeneutic tradition). September 17, 2013 Eugene Wolters 19 Comments. Below I have summarized some types of literary criticism you might consider when reading or writing about literature. Post-Colonial Criticism (1990s-present) 10. Believe it or not, Critical Race Theory is not a liberal … She has worked professionally with children of all ages and is pursuing a second Masters degree in education from Monmouth University. The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to critical theory: . With flashcards, games, and an insightful academic debate is born were! The social sciences theories through its emphasis on Criticism topical guide to critical theory reading list of critical theories for r/criticaltheory the r/philosophy... Have pondered fundamental questions about how, why and what we bring literature... Aesthetic theories of Kenneth Burke underpin much of the most commonly identified schools of thought exist,! Overview of and topical guide to critical theory reading list scholars took and., as much as possible, into fields, eras, etc what types of literary theory is that specifically... 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