First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When first published in 1992, The Critical and Cultural Theory Reader served the growing need for essays and extracts for the study of culture. Now, the second and expanded edition of this highly successful reader reflects the growing diversity of the field and includes thirteen new essays.

Now in a fully updated second edition The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory is an indispensible guide for anyone approaching the field for the first time. Exploring ideas from a diverse range of disciplines through a series of 11 critical essays and a dictionary of key names and terms, this book examines some of the most complex and fundamental theories in modern scholarship including: Marxism Trauma Theory Ecocriticism Psychoanalysis Feminism Posthumanism Gender and Queer Theory Structuralism Narrative Postcolonialism Deconstruction Postmodernism With three new essays, an updated introduction, further reading and a wealth of new dictionary entries, this text is an indispensible guide for all students of the theoretically informed arts, humanities and social sciences.

This radical, new book brings together the key concepts, issues and debates in critical and cultural theory today. Each chapter presents a self-contained analysis of each concept as well providing a range of discussion questions and further reading. Throughout, text-links connect related material across chapters, enabling the reader to pursue their own line of disciplinary or cross-disciplinary inquiry.

This is the first anthology to thematize the dramatic upward and downward shifts that have created the new social theory, and to present this new and exciting body of work in a thoroughly trans-disciplinary manner. In this revised second edition readers are provided with a much greater range of thinkers and perspectives, including new sections on such issues as imperialism, power, civilization clash, health and performance. The first section sets out the main schools of contemporary thought, from Habermas and Honneth on new critical theory, to Jameson and Hall on cultural studies, and Foucault and Bourdieu on poststructuralism. The sections that follow trace theory debates as they become more issues-based and engaged. They are: the post-foundational debates over morality, justice and epistemological truth the social meaning of nationalism, multiculturalism and globalization identity debates around gender, sexuality, race, the self and post-coloniality. This new edition provides more ample biographical and intellectual introductions to each thinker, and substantial introductions to each of the major sections. The editors introduce the volume with a newly revised, interpretive overview of social theory today. The New Social Theory Reader is an essential, reliable guide to current theoretical debates.

Now in a fully updated second edition The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory is an indispensible guide for anyone approaching the field for the first time. Exploring ideas from a diverse range of disciplines through a series of 11 critical essays and a dictionary of key names and terms, this book examines some of the most complex and fundamental theories in modern scholarship including: Marxism Trauma Theory Ecocriticism Psychoanalysis Feminism Posthumanism Gender and Queer Theory Structuralism Narrative Postcolonialism Deconstruction Postmodernism With three new essays, an updated introduction, further reading and a wealth of new dictionary entries, this text is an indispensible guide for all students of the theoretically informed arts, humanities and social sciences.

This is a core introduction to the most innovative and influential writings to have shaped and defined the relations between language, culture and cultural identity.