Literature, In Theory

'Julian Wolfreys continue to impress, as one of the finest readers -- and teachers -- of literature today, with this new book. From the original and multi-layered readings of novels from Dickens and Hardy to Ann Bronte and Percival Everett, Wolfreys moves us into an almost visceral recognition of the changeable and interchangeable natures of fiction and critical theory. The pages on J Hillis Miller are a virtual tour de force that brings the four topics of the title into brilliant focus.' - Juliet Flower MacCannell, Professor Emerita of English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, USA

Julian Wolfreys is a Professor of Modern Literature and Culture with the Department of English and Drama at Loughborough University, UK. The author and editor of numerous books and articles, his most recent publications are Writing London III: Inventions of the City (Palgrave) and Transgression: Identity, Place, Time (Palgrave).

Acknowledgements; Preface; Introduction: Literature, in theory; PART I Subjectivities; 1. Toward a phenomenology of urban Gothic: the example of Dickens; 2. Eminent Victorians or 'true histories': Anne Bronte, Thomas Hood, Christina Rossetti, Robert Browning; 3. The 'political' novel in the nineteenth century or, the contested ground of the present; 4. Professions: of English diaspora; 5. No, not, none, nothing, nobody: place, pattern, death and narratives of negation in Dubliners; PART II Responses & Responsibilities; 6. 'A self-referential density': Glyph, the fiction of transgression and the 'theory' thing; 7. Teaching Derrida?; 8. 'Theory' & the novel (& the novel?); 9. Of hospitality & the demands of criticism or, setting an example; PART III The work of the trope or, literature in theory; 10. The reiterable circularity of Being; 11. Responsibilities of J or, aphorism's other: criticism's powers of transformation; 12. 'The strong dead return': Harold Bloom's daemonic shades; 13. Heidegger's uncanny: the manifold technicity of the unhomely; 14. Face to face with Giorgio Agamben or, the other in love; Bibliography; Index.