English 420: Critical Theory > Internet Resources in Critical Theory


My standard line on the Web used to be:  it's like Cable TV to the nth power—billions of channels, nothing on.  And even when you do find something, you can't always trust the quality of the information.  Just the same, cybernautically speaking, things are getting better, and there are many reputable sites out there (as well as some less reputable ones that are nevertheless valuable for other reasons).  For instance:

  • "The Voice of the Shuttle" at UCSB aims to keep track of all the best Internet resources in literary and cultural studies.  The theory page features an exhaustive set of links to many other resources (as always, of widely varying quality), including separate pages for gender studies, women's studies and queer theory; cultural studies; minority studies; philosophy; and literary criticism.  You can also connect from here to on-line theoretical journals; full-text versions of classic texts by Aristotle, Plato, Marx, et al.; homepages, listservs and discussion groups dedicated to major theorists and schools of theory; etc., etc.  Many of the "other worthy sites" (below) are also indexed at VoS.
  • Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth's Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (HSU users only) was originally a print resource that now exists primarily in an on-line, hypertext version.  When presented with the confusing choice between "Contents," "List of Entries," and "Index of Topics" on the Online Guide's front page, I find it most helpful to begin with the "List of Entries."  If you don't find what you're looking for (or a link that leads you to what you're looking for) there, then try the "Index."
  • If you find the Hopkins Guide more confusing than clarifying, try k.i.s.s. of the panopticon (Dougie Bickett, SUNY Geneseo), which exists, among other reasons, to "give people a quick, user-friendly, one-stop shopping guide to... cultural/critical theory."  "[B]eyond a simple rehashing of the big ideas out there," says Bickett (who created this site while in grad school at the University of Washington), "it is our modest (and populist) aim to make cultural theory both straightforward and intelligible -- hence the subtitle 'k.i.s.s.' ('Keep It Simple Stupid') -- as well as applicable to those of you asking yourself 'What does it all mean?'"  Bickett sometimes misrepresents or oversimplifies, but this is an attractive and generally reliable site.
  • A short alternative to the above sites is the Glossary of critical and theoretical terms for Engl 260, "Introduction to Literary Study," by Prof. Deborah Wyrick of North Carolina State University.  Much less comprehensive, but handy if you're in a hurry.
  • The Cultural Studies and Critical Theory page of The English Server (founded at Carnegie Mellon University, now at the University of Washington) catalogs academic essays and articles available online.  Though it breaks down Cultural Studies and Critical Theory into many sub-categories, the English Server also has separate sites devoted to Feminism, Gender & Sexuality, Economic and Social Theory, Modern and Classical Philosophy, and Race.
  • Erratic Impact's Philosophy Research Base.  An astounding meta-index site that must be explored to be fully appreciated.  Plan to spend some time.
  • And last but not least: Critical Theory meets online education. Yale has built an online version of Prof. Paul Fry's Engl 300: Introduction to the Theory of Literature. (See also the course page at Academic Earth.) So I guess I can just stop teaching critical theory now. (Maybe not--but Fry is a smart guy. If you have enough hours in your life, this would make a great supplement--possibly, some of you will feel, a great substitute--for what we do in our own classroom.)

Some other worthy sites:

And a few more miscellaneous links:
  • Carol Lloyd, "I Was Michel Foucault's Love Slave" (Salon, February 10, 1997):  a doubter rails self-deprecatingly against the theory industry
  • "Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu" (The Onion 24 July 2002; subscribers only): as a parody of Deconstruction, this doesn't quite work--what poor Jon Rosenblatt is doing isn't D-Con in its strictest sense, and behind all the bulls**t, the analysis is actually not so bad. But as a send-up of self-conscious, jargon-ridden, grad student prose, it's a real hoot.

The Nation's archives are now restricted to subscribers of the print edition, though I'd gladly send you a copy of any of the articles below via my own account; just e-mail me. Lingua Franca is now sadly defunct.

  • Caleb Crain, "Pleasure Principles: Queer Theorists and Gay Journalists Wrestle Over the Politics of Sex" (Lingua Franca, October 1997)
  • Scott McLemee, "Critic at the Carnival" (The Nation, December 29, 1997):  a useful introduction to Mikhail Bakhtin, via a review of Caryl Emerson's The First Hundred Years of Mikhail Bakhtin
  • Adam Shatz, "Up From Tuskegee" (The Nation, January 12, 1998):  a survey of W.E.B. DuBois's life and thought, in the guise of a review of Adolph Reed's W.E.B DuBois and American Political Thought
  • Marshall Berman, "Unchained Melody" (The Nation, May 11, 1998):  a review essay of the sesquicentennial edition of Marx & Engels's The Communist Manifesto
  • Larissa MacFarquhar, "Baudrillard On Tour" (The New Yorker November 28, 2005): who knew that The Matrix was (allegedly) based on the work of a fancy French postructuralist theorist, best known for his concept of "the simulacrum"?
Library Resources

OK:  so the Web may be sexy and convenient, but print is often still your most reliable mode of high-quality info.  My first advice, then, would be to get to the library and discover the ancient pleasures of roaming through the stacks.  How to roam more efficiently?  Searching electronic catalogs and databases is an art that can only be learned through practice, patience and frustration--so get cracking.  Still, there are ways to give your search some direction.  Your first stop is our pal Terry Eagleton, whose book includes two bibliographies, a formal one beginning on p. 217, and a more recent one contained within the "Notes" section of the Afterword (213-16).  You can ask me for ideas about other, more recent resources, especially books and journals in the area of post-colonial and minority discourse studies.

Another good idea is simply to browse the shelves of the library in the relevant Library of Congress subject heading section(s). Most books of interest to us will be in the PN75's through the PN99's. In addition, there are dozens of scholarly journals publishing essays relevant to the concerns of our class; ask me for the titles of some prominent ones if you'd like to take a look.  Recent issues of many of the best journals are now available on-line, through databases such as Project Muse (select "View Journals by Subject") and JSTOR.

Next, there are several books in the library that you should know about, several of which are in the Reference section (i.e., they don't circulate):

  • Hugh C. Holman and William Harmon's A Handbook to Literature, 7th ed., includes thumbnail sketches of many theoretical schools, and quick definitions of hundreds of critical and theoretical terms, both old-fashioned and contemporary.  (Reference PN41 .H6 1992)  Good alternatives to this book are:
    • Chris Baldick's Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (Ref. PN41 .C67 1990) and
    • M. H. Abrams's A Glossary of Literary Terms, 6th ed. (Ref. PN41 .A814 1993), which contains a good bluffer's guide to literary theory in the back.
  • Similar books dedicated exclusively to theory are nearby:
    • Joseph Childers and Gary Hentzi's Columbia Dictionary of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism (Ref. PN81 .C65 1995),
    • Michael Groden and Martin Kreiswirth's Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism (Ref. PN81 .J54 1994), which also exists in an on-line version (as I mentioned above).
    • Jeremy Hawthorn's Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory (Ref. PN44.5 .H37 1994), and
    • Irena R. Makaryk's Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory (Ref. PN81 .E52 1993).
  • Lentricchia, Frank and Thomas McLaughlin, eds. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Not a handbook, exactly, but a collection of twenty-eight essays which discuss, in relatively plain language, some of the principal concerns of contemporary literary theory. Each essay is centered around one particularly rich or suggestive term: "discourse," "unconscious," "indeterminacy," "gender," "ideology," etc. Also includes a very good bibliography. REFERENCE / PN81 .C84 1995
  • Newton, K. M., ed. Twentieth-Century Literary Theory: A Reader. A kind of handbook, and a very good one. It provides brief headnotes on most of the principal critical and theoretical schools of the 20th century, and includes fifty quick and dirty excerpts from important theoretical texts, a few of which appear in our xeroxed course reader. PN94 .T87 1988
  • Richter, David H., ed. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends.  What it says.  Insofar as Richter covers "classic" texts, he's a very good reference for the Bluffer's Guide to the Grand-Daddies of Theory project that we'll undertake later in the semester.  But he also provides reasonably good introductory essays on Marxism, Formalism, Poststructuralism, and so on. (The library doesn't own this, but you can borrow a copy from me.)

 
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