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Find 161 How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies 3rd Edition by Parker at over 30 bookstores. Buy, rent or sell. How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies Robert Dale Parker No preview available - 2014 Robert Dale Parker No preview available - 2011.
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Offering a refreshing combination of accessibility and intellectual rigor, How to Interpret Literature: Critical Theory for Literary and Cultural Studies, Second Edition, presents an up-to-date, concise, and wide-ranging historicist survey of contemporary thinking in critical theory. The only book of its kind that thoroughly merges literary studies with cultural studies, this text provides a critical look at the major movements in literary studies since the 1930s, including those often omitted from other texts. It is also the only up-to-date survey of literary theory that devotes extensive treatment to Queer Theory and Postcolonial and Race Studies. How to Interpret Literature, Second Edition, is ideal as either a stand-alone text or in conjunction with an anthology of primary readings such as Robert Dale Parker's Critical Theory: A Reader for Literary and Cultural Studies. DISTINCTIVE FEATURES.
Uses a conversational and engaging tone that speaks directly to today's students. Covers a variety of theoretical schools-including New Criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Marxism-weaving connections among chapters to show how these different movements respond to and build on each other. Offers a rich assortment of pedagogical features (charts, text boxes that address frequently asked questions, photos, and a bibliography). I read this for a critical theory class in my English MA program and I really enjoyed it. Parker makes each of the 'more prominent' theories (feminism, queer studies, marxism, etc.) much more accessible while offering a substantial amount of supplemental reading suggestions per chapter.
He also takes each theory and applies various examples of that theory to real life, literature, modern movies, and so much more. It really helped me understand so many concepts that are otherwise very difficult and abstract. This is a primer for undergraduates on the major schools of modern literary theory. I was privileged enough to take a class under the author this semester, and can attest to the fact (if the book's contents weren't enough for you) that he knows his stuff. I remember the first critical theory class I ever took, when I was at my other university, and it wasn't pretty. It felt like I was floundering around in the dark, and I remember waiting around for the professor to show up to class every day and talking with my classmates about how the class made me feel too stupid to be an English major. In fact, that class might have directly contributed to my brief but robust affair with Psychology.
Thank God that's over. I truly am not meant to be a scientist of any kind. When I transferred, I was understandably not thrilled that the credit for that class would not transfer, and I would need to take a critical theory class again. Today, I'm actually incredibly grateful for that, because now I know not only that I enjoy critical theory, but that I'm pretty decent at it, too! And while I do have a profound distaste for the fact that LGBT theory is referred to by the q slur, that isn't this book's fault. Anyway, if you're like me and you struggle a lot with critical theory, don't drop your English major just yet.
Give this book a shot, and don't feel bad about reading it slowly. Oh, and if you can, take a class under the professor who wrote it.
You won't regret it. The textbook paired with my spring 2017 intro to English studies course.
In class we would read sections of chapters (like Marxism and Feminism) and I would finish chapters later (or, as with the queer studies chapter, read before assigned). On my own, I read the chapters for Structuralism, Deconstruction, New Historicism, Colonialism and Race Studies, and Eco-Criticism and Disability studies. The first two of those definitely took a while (with many new terms to remember), but we brushed on them frequently during the semester. It would have taken much more time, since we already had our hands full with a broad introduction to all the different methods and lenses applied to interpretation. I will certainly be reviewing this book's chapters for help in the future, especially the more abstract methods (structuralism and deconstruction, new historicism, reader response). This is a very helpful read that explains and exemplifies the many ways of looking at or using each mode of criticism introduced.