Series edited by Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Routledge Critical Thinkers is designed for students who need an accessible introduction to the key figures in contemporary critical thought. The books provide crucial orientation for further study and equip readers to engage with theorists' original texts. The volumes in the Routledge Critical Thinkers series place each key theorist in his or her historical and intellectual context and explain:
- why he or she is important
- what motivated his or her key ideas are
- who or what influenced the thinkers
- who and what the thinker has influenced
- what to read next and why.
Featuring extensively annotated guides to further reading, Routledge Critical Thinkers is the first point of reference for any student wishing to investigate the work of a specific theorist.
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Hans-Georg Gadamer
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Hans-Georg Gadamer’s theory of hermeneutics is one of the most important modern theories of reading, offering both a framework for understanding the practice and a method for its interpretation. In this clear and comprehensive guide to Gadamer’s thought, Karl Simms: presents an overview of his...
To Be Published September 30th 2013 by Routledge
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Paul Gilroy
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Paul Gilroy has been a controversial force at the forefront of debates around race, nation, and diaspora. Working across a broad range of disciplines, Gilroy has argued that racial identities are historically constructed, formed by colonization, slavery, nationalist philosophies, and consumer...
Published December 13th 2012 by Routledge
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Frantz Fanon
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Frantz Fanon has established a position as a leading anticolonial thinker, through key texts such as Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth. He has influenced the work of thinkers from Edward Said and Homi Bhabha to Paul Gilroy, but his complex work is often misinterpreted as an...
Published November 15th 2012 by Routledge
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Martin Heidegger
2nd Edition
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Since the publication of his mammoth work, Being and Time, Martin Heidegger has remained one of the most influential figures in contemporary thought, and is a key influence for modern literary and cultural theory. This guidebook provides an ideal entry-point for readers new to Heidegger,...
Published March 24th 2011 by Routledge
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Giorgio Agamben
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Giorgio Agamben is one of the most important and controversial figures in contemporary continental philosophy and critical theory. His work covers a broad array of topics from biblical criticism to Guantanamo Bay and the ‘war on terror’. Alex Murray explains Agamben’s key ideas, including: an...
Published April 13th 2010 by Routledge
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Jean-Paul Sartre
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
A critical figure in twentieth-century literature and philosophy, Jean-Paul Sartre changed the course of critical thought, and claimed a new, important role for the intellectual. Christine Daigle sets Sartre’s thought in context, and considers a number of key ideas in detail, charting their impact...
Published October 15th 2009 by Routledge
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F.R. Leavis
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
‘informative, succint, circumspect; an exacting introduction to Leavis as an incisive master critic. Ideal for today’s students and general readers’ – Chris Terry, Times Higher Education F.R. Leavis is a landmark figure in twentieth-century literary criticism and theory. His outspoken and...
Published July 13th 2009 by Routledge
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Sigmund Freud
2nd Edition
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
The work of Sigmund Freud has penetrated almost every area of literary theory and cultural studies, as well as contemporary culture. Pamela Thurschwell explains and contextualises psychoanalytic theory and its meaning for modern thinking. This updated second edition explores developments and...
Published April 26th 2009 by Routledge
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Jean Baudrillard
2nd Edition
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Jean Baudrillard is one of the most controversial theorists of our time, famous for his claim that the Gulf War never happened and for his provocative writing on terrorism, specifically 9/11. This new and fully updated second edition includes: an introduction to Baudrillard’s key works and...
Published December 7th 2008 by Routledge
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Edward Said
2nd Edition
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Edward Said is perhaps best known as the author of the landmark study Orientalism, a book which changed the face of critical theory and shaped the emerging field of post-colonial studies, and for his controversial journalism on the Palestinian political situation. Looking at the context and the...
Published October 15th 2008 by Routledge
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Hannah Arendt
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Hannah Arendt's work offers a powerful critical engagement with the cultural and philosophical crises of mid-twentieth-century Europe. Her idea of the banality of evil, made famous after her report on the trial of the Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, remains controversial to this day. In the face...
Published October 5th 2008 by Routledge
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Emmanuel Levinas
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Best known for his theories of ethics and responsibility, Emmanuel Levinas was one of the most profound and influential thinkers of the last century. In this clear, accessible guide, Seán Hand examines why Levinas is increasingly fundamental to the study of literature and culture today. ...
Published September 11th 2008 by Routledge
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Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick was one of the most significant literary theorists of the last forty years and a key figure in contemporary queer theory. In this engaging and inspiring guide, Jason Edwards: introduces and explains key terms such as affects, the first person, homosocialities, and queer...
Published August 26th 2008 by Routledge
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Theodor Adorno
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
The range of Adorno's achievement, and the depth of his insights, is breathtaking and daunting. His work on literary, artistic, and musical forms, his devastating indictment of modern industrial society, and his profound grasp of Western culture from Homer to Hollywood have made him one...
Published November 28th 2007 by Routledge
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Stephen Greenblatt
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Stephen Greenblatt is the most important exponent of 'new historicism', a dynamic critical movement which rejects the traditional reliance on individual canonical texts, exploring a multitude of other, more marginal works and voices. Questioning not just literary but social, political and cultural...
Published October 21st 2007 by Routledge
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Theorists of Modernist Poetry
T.S. Eliot, T.E. Hulme, Ezra Pound
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Modernist poetry heralded a radical new aesthetic of experimentation, pioneering new verse forms and subjects, and changing the very notion of what it meant to be a poet. This volume examines T.S. Eliot, T.E. Hulme and Ezra Pound, three of the most influential figures of the modernist movement, and...
Published September 30th 2007 by Routledge
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Paul Virilio
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Paul Virilio is a challenging and original thinker whose work on technology, state power and war is increasingly relevant today. Exploring Virilio's main texts from their political and historical contexts, and case studies from contemporary culture and media in order to explain his...
Published July 24th 2007 by Routledge
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Cyberculture Theorists
Manuel Castells and Donna Haraway
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
This book surveys a ‘cluster’ of works that seek to explore the cultures of cyberspace, the Internet and the information society. It introduces key ideas, and includes detailed discussion of the work of two key thinkers in this area, Manuel Castells and Donna Haraway, as well as outlining the...
Published December 12th 2006 by Routledge
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Theorists of the Modernist Novel
James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Tracing the developing modernist aesthetic in the thought and writings of James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf, Deborah Parsons considers the cultural, social and personal influences upon the three writers. Exploring the connections between their theories, Parsons pays particular...
Published November 29th 2006 by Routledge
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Feminist Film Theorists
Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Teresa de Lauretis, Barbara Creed
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Focusing on the ground-breaking work of Laura Mulvey, Kaja Silverman, Teresa de Lauretis and Barbara Creed, this book explores how, since it began in the 1970s, feminist film theory has revolutionized the way that films and their spectators can be understood. Examining the new and distinctive...
Published August 23rd 2006 by Routledge
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American Theorists of the Novel
Henry James, Lionel Trilling and Wayne C. Booth
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
The American theorists: Henry James, Lionel Trilling and Wayne C. Booth have revolutionized our understanding of narrative and have each championed the novel as an art form. Concepts from their work have become part of the fabric of novel criticism today, influencing theorists, authors and readers...
Published May 24th 2006 by Routledge
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Antonio Gramsci
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
For readers encountering Gramsci for the first time, Steve Jones covers key elements of his thought through detailed discussion and studies the historical context of the theorist's thought, offers examples of putting Gramsci's ideas into practice in the analysis of contemporary culture and...
Published April 20th 2006 by Routledge
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Homi K. Bhabha
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Homi K. Bhabha is one of the most highly renowned figures in contemporary post-colonial studies. This volume explores his writings and their influence on postcolonial theory, introducing in clear and accessible language the key concepts of his work, such as 'ambivalence', 'mimicry', 'hybridity'...
Published December 19th 2005 by Routledge
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Louis Althusser
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Best known for his theories of ideology and its impact on politics and culture, Louis Althusser revolutionized Marxist theory. His writing changed the face of literary and cultural studies, and continues to influence political modes of criticism such as feminism, postcolonialism and queer theory....
Published November 16th 2005 by Routledge
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Jacques Lacan
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Jacques Lacan is one of the most challenging and controversial of contemporary thinkers, as well as the most influential psychoanalyst since Freud. Lacanian theory has reached far beyond the consulting room to engage with such diverse disciplines as literature, film, gender and social theory. This...
Published November 10th 2004 by Routledge
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Stuart Hall
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
James Procter's introduction places Hall's work within its historical contexts, providing a clear guide to his key ideas and influences, as well as to his critics and his intellectual legacy. Stuart Hall has been pivotal to the development of cultural studies during the past forty years. Whether as...
Published March 17th 2004 by Routledge
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Simone de Beauvoir
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Simone de Beauvoir's groundbreaking work has transformed the way we think about gender and identity. Without her 1949 text The Second Sex, gender theory as we know it today would be unthinkable. A leading figure in French existentialism, Beauvoir's concepts of 'becoming woman' and of woman as '...
Published November 12th 2003 by Routledge
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Julia Kristeva
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
One of the most original thinkers of the twentieth century, Julia Kristeva has been driving forward the fields of literary and cultural studies since the 1960s. This volume is an accessible, introductory guide to the main themes of Kristeva's work, including her ideas on:*semiotics and symbolism*...
Published October 15th 2003 by Routledge
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Roland Barthes
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Roland Barthes is a central figure in the study of language, literature, culture and the media. This book prepares readers for their first encounter with his crucial writings on some of the most important theoretical debates, including:*existentialism and Marxism*semiology, or the 'language of...
Published July 30th 2003 by Routledge
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Slavoj Zizek
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Slavoj Zizek is no ordinary philosopher. Approaching critical theory and psychoanalysis in a recklessly entertaining fashion, Zizek's critical eye alights upon a bewildering and exhilarating range of subjects, from the political apathy of contemporary life, to a joke about the man who thinks he's...
Published June 4th 2003 by Routledge
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Michel Foucault
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
It is impossible to imagine contemporary critical theory without the work of Michel Foucault. His radical reworkings of the concepts of power, knowledge, discourse and identity have influenced the widest possible range of theories and impacted upon disciplinary fields from literary studies to...
Published May 7th 2003 by Routledge
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
It is difficult to imagine a world without common sense, the distinction between truth and falsehood, the belief in some form of morality or an agreement that we are all human. But Friedrich Nietzsche did imagine such a world, and his work has become a crucial point of departure for contemporary...
Published April 23rd 2003 by Routledge
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Jacques Derrida
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
There are few figures more important in literary and critical theory than Jacques Derrida. Whether lauded or condemned, his writing has had far-reaching ramifications, and his work on deconstruction cannot be ignored. This volume introduces students of literature and cultural studies to Derrida's...
Published March 12th 2003 by Routledge
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Paul Ricoeur
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Paul Ricoeur is one of the most wide-ranging thinkers to emerge in the twentieth century. He has developed a unique 'theory of reading' or hermeneutics, which extends far beyond the reading of literary works to build into a theory for the reading of 'life'. For this reason, his work has impacted...
Published December 4th 2002 by Routledge
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Jean-François Lyotard
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Jean-François Lyotard is one of the most celebrated proponents of what has become known as the 'postmodern'. More than almost any other contemporary theorist, he has explored the relations between knowledge, art, politics and history, in ways that offer radical new possibilities for thinking about...
Published November 13th 2002 by Routledge
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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak offers an overtly political challenge to the way we think about literature and culture. As she highlights the many legacies of colonialism, she re-defines the ethical horizons of contemporary critical thought. This volume focuses on her key theoretical concepts,...
Published October 23rd 2002 by Routledge
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Judith Butler
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Since the publication of Gender Trouble in 1990, Judith Butler has revolutionised our understanding of identities and the ways in which they are constructed. This volume examines her critical thought through key texts, touching upon such issues as:* The subject* Gender* Sex* Language* The...
Published March 27th 2002 by Routledge
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Gilles Deleuze
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Why think? Not, according to Gilles Deleuze, in order to be clever, but because thinking transforms life. Why read literature? Not for pure entertainment, Deleuze tells us, but because literature can recreate the boundaries of life. With his emphasis on creation, the future and the enhancement of...
Published September 5th 2001 by Routledge
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Maurice Blanchot
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Without Maurice Blanchot, literary theory as we know it today would have been unthinkable. Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze: all are key theorists crucially influenced by Blanchot's work.This accessible guide:* works 'idea by idea' through Blanchot's...
Published February 14th 2001 by Routledge
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Paul de Man
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
Paul de Man's work is key to the American deconstruction movement and to the so-called political turn in critical theory. Seventeen years after his death, his works continue to arouse violent reactions among critics. This book explains why de Man is such an important voice, detailing his critical...
Published January 24th 2001 by Routledge
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Fredric Jameson
Series: Routledge Critical Thinkers
An invaluable introduction to the life and work of one of today's most important cultural critics. Studied on most undergraduate literary and cultural studies courses, Fredric Jameson's writing targets subjects from architecture to science fiction, cinema to global capitalism. Of his works, The...
Published September 6th 2000 by Routledge