Reading after theory
Editorial BLACKWELL PUBLISHERS LTD.
Mainland Spain
- Publisher BLACKWELL PUBLISHERS LTD.
- ISBN13 9780631221685
- ISBN10 0631221689
- Type BOOK
- Pages 194
- Published 2002
- Language English
- Bookbinding Rustic
Subjects
Literary TheoryReading after theory
Editorial BLACKWELL PUBLISHERS LTD.
Mainland Spain
Book details
"Valentine Cunningham's controversial manifesto asks what will and should happen to reading in the post-theory era. His account examines the spread of literary theory from the 1960s, when it was considered highly contentious, to the present time, when theoretical approaches are taken for granted across a range of disciplines. Whilst acknowledging the necessity of theory for reading and recognising the good it has done, he strongly criticises it for encouraging bad reading, and for diminishing the richness, scope and human connection of texts." Cunningham argues that theory has made texts secondary to questions of ideology, oppressions and resistance (important though they are) and proposes that what is needed in order to rescue literary studies is a return to close and 'tactful' reading. His manifesto insists on the primacy of texts over all theorising about them, and on the restoration of the human to literary studies.