Critical confrontations: literary theories in dialogue

Abstract

Critical Confrontations extends beyond the encyclopedia-like treatment found in most introductory volumes to broaden the interpretive landscape of critical theory and make it more useful. Contending that the dominant paradigms of contemporary critical theory eclipse rather than enable the analysis of gender, race, and difference that lies at the heart of today's cultural reflection, Meili Steele joins heretofore separate realms - tradition-based views of language and antihumanistic theories - to provide a new, more cohesive story of critical theory. Steele renders perceptive analyses of contemporary theory's major thinkers, including Seyla Benhabib, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Julia Kristeva, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jessica Benjamin, Judith Butler, Mikhail Bakhtin, Jurgen Habermas, Cornel West, and Edward Said. He also considers the work of such important contemporary writers as Marie Cardinal, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, and Susan Glaspell.