The Routledge Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory, 2nd Edition

EDITORS' INTRODUCTIONTO THE FIRST EDITION

 

 

 

 

STUDYING CRITICAL THEORY

To some students approaching it for the first time, critical theory can appear obscure, arcane, obfuscatory and even a distraction from what should be the real focus of one's interest — the literary texts, works of art, films or television programmes, historical periods or forms of behaviour and experience that one expected to discuss on courses in literary criticism, history of art, media studies, history or psychology. Theory is, however, none of these things.

Although theoretical writing can often appear to be very complex and to employ vocabularies and ways of thinking that are different from those with which most of us might be familiar, it engages with questions, ...