Literary in Theory

Jonathan Culler is the Class of 1916 Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University and one of the most influential literary critics in North America. His works include Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty (1974), and Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (1997). He also co-edited Just Being Difficult? Academic Writing in the Public Arena (Stanford University Press, 2003).

"In this wide-ranging study, Jonathan Culler gives us an engaging overview of the interdependency of 'literature' and 'theory' that configures the contemporary academic scene . . . I love this book, and highly recommend it to anyone interested in the literary and theoretical landscape of contemporary academia." - John Dolis (Comparative Literature Studies) "This difficult yet interesting book asserts that theory is not dead, that theory is literature and literature theory . . . The book is throughout provocative in these and other defences of theory, and of literature." - Modern Language Review "The Literary in Theory takes up questions that have been basic to the enterprise known as 'theory' with a fine mix of historical awareness, lively critical sense, and thoughtful advocacy. Culler's vision of literary studies is inclusive and cumulative: it reminds us that 'learning' is both a noun and a verb, both a result and a process. Is theory dead? This book shows that it has a pulse and a sense of humor." - Haun Saussy (Yale University) "[Jonathan Culler's] ultimate aim, as his title suggests, is to make his readers aware of the literary (i.e., the special self-reflexive, questioning, skeptical attitude and practice which seeks to understand the conditions of its own possibility) within theory or Theory, which is an interdisciplinary undertaking informed by this attitude or practice. I would recommend this book to teachers and to students of literature for its clarity, excellent analyses and exemplifications, as well as for its critical attitude, in the sense of critique, of central issues confronting the humanities today." (Walter De Gruyter)

• @fmct:Contents @toc4:Acknowledgementsiii @toc2:Introduction000 @toc1:Theory @toc2:1The Literary in Theory00 2The Novel and the Nation00 3Resisting Theory00 @toc1:Concepts @toc2:4Text: Its Vicissitudes000 5The Sign: Saussure and Derrida on Arbitrariness000 6The Performative000 7Interpretation: In Praise of Overinterpretation000 8Omniscience000 @toc1:Critical Practices @toc2:9Bad Writing and Good Philosophy000 10Writing Criticism000 11Doing Cultural Studies000 12Comparative Literature, at last000 @toc4:Index000