Series: Beginnings

Beginning Theory has been helping students navigate through the thickets of literary and cultural theory for over two decades. This new and expanded fourth edition continues to offer readers the best single-volume introduction to the field. The bewildering variety of approaches, theorists, and technical language is lucidly and expertly unravelled. Unlike many books which assume certain positions about the critics...

Beginning Shakespeare introduces students to the study of Shakespeare and grounds their understanding of his work in theoretical discourses. After an introductory survey of the dominant approaches of the past, seven chapters examine the major current critical approaches to Shakespeare: psychoanalysis, New Historicism, Cultural Materialism, gender studies, queer theory, postcolonial criticism, and performance criticism. A further chapter looks at the...

Beginning Classical Social Theory introduces students and educated general readers to thirteen key social theorists by examining a single, exemplary text by each author, ranging from Comte to Adorno. It answers the need for a book that helps students develop the skill to critically read theory. Rather than learning how to admire the canonical theorists, readers are alerted to the...