| Preface | p. VIII |
| Marxist criticism in the 1930s | p. 1 |
| The Great Depression | p. 1 |
| Socialism and Communism in America | p. 2 |
| Marxist philosophy and aesthetics | p. 5 |
| A pioneer American Marxist project | p. 7 |
| An exemplary Marxist career | p. 9 |
| The Frankfurt School in America during the 1930s | p. 15 |
| Cultural politics: " New Criticism" versus Marxism | p. 17 |
| The "New Criticism" | p. 21 |
| The emergence and growth of the new Critical School | p. 21 |
| The fundamentals of a formalist poetics | p. 23 |
| Formalist protocols and "close reading" | p. 24 |
| Pedagogical missions | p. 31 |
| Inside and outside New Criticism: an exemplary case | p. 35 |
| New Critical Formalism defended in latter days | p. 39 |
| East European and American New Critical formalism | p. 45 |
| The Chicago School | p. 52 |
| Pedagogical foundations and the rise of theory | p. 52 |
| Neo-Aristotelian poetics | p. 55 |
| Critical method | p. 58 |
| The pluralist line | p. 62 |
| On the marks and influence of the Chicago School | p. 66 |
| The New York Intellectuals | p. 70 |
| The formation of the School | p. 70 |
| Marxist politics and beyond | p. 72 |
| The enterprise of cultural criticism | p. 74 |
| Psychoanalytical supplement | p. 79 |
| The focus on modern literature | p. 85 |
| Theories of American literature | p. 89 |
| On the institutionalization of criticism and literature | p. 94 |
| Myth criticism | p. 100 |
| Perspectives on myth in the modern era | p. 100 |
| Varieties of mythopoetics | p. 104 |
| Of divination, desecration, and wonder | p. 111 |
| Systematics of myth criticism | p. 118 |
| Myth criticism and the institution of literary studies | p. 124 |
| Phenomenological and existential criticism | p. 128 |
| Early Cold War times: from the Atomic to the Space Age | p. 128 |
| Continental philosophy in America | p. 130 |
| Phenomenological criticism Geneva style | p. 133 |
| Phenomenological criticism pluralized | p. 137 |
| From existential phenomenology to Christian existentialism | p. 143 |
| Utopian existential criticism | p. 147 |
| Continental philosophy in America: the first and second waves | p. 152 |
| Hermeneutics | p. 157 |
| The Vietnam era | p. 157 |
| Heidegger's hermeneutical revolution | p. 161 |
| Hermeneutics new and old | p. 162 |
| Destructive hermeneutics | p. 169 |
| Hermeneutics after deconstrution | p. 175 |
| Reader-response criticism | p. 181 |
| The era of the reader | p. 181 |
| Reading: from phenomenology to poststructuralism | p. 183 |
| Psychoanalysis of readers | p. 188 |
| The subject of pedagogy | p. 191 |
| Reading as resistance: feminism and Marxism | p. 194 |
| German reception theory in America | p. 198 |
| The changing university | p. 201 |
| Literary structuralism and semiotics | p. 203 |
| Progenitors and progenies | p. 203 |
| Linguistics and semiotics of poetic discourse | p. 207 |
| Narratology: from syntax to rhetoric to discourse | p. 211 |
| The conventions and codes of reading | p. 215 |
| The discipline of semiotics | p. 220 |
| Deconstrutive criticism | p. 228 |
| The emergence and formation of deconstructive criticism | p. 228 |
| Theories of language after structuralism | p. 230 |
| Beyond phenomenology | p. 236 |
| Double reading, misreading, misprision | p. 241 |
| Psychoanalysis, post structuralism, deconstruction | p. 246 |
| Deconstruction, feminism, politics: the social text | p. 253 |
| Interpellating deconstructive criticism | p. 257 |
| Feminist criticism | p. 262 |
| Feminist criticism and the women's movement | p. 262 |
| The focus on women's literature | p. 265 |
| Critical method, literary theory, politics | p. 269 |
| French psychoanalytical theory: L'Écriture féminine | p. 273 |
| The institution of women's studies | p. 277 |
| Black aesthetics | p. 283 |
| The black liberation movement during the Cold War era | p. 283 |
| The Black Aesthetic | p. 285 |
| Critical practices and theory | p. 292 |
| Black feminist criticism | p. 298 |
| Ethnic studies in the university | p. 305 |
| Cultural criticism from the 1960s to the 1980s | p. 312 |
| Legacies of the new left and the Movement | p. 312 |
| Assaulting the institution of literary studies | p. 316 |
| European Neo-Marxism and dialectical theory | p. 323 |
| The politics of " theory" | p. 326 |
| Left deconstructionist critism | p. 333 |
| Post-Marxist cultural criticism | p. 336 |
| Cultural studies in the academy | p. 341 |
| The fragmentation of leftist criticism | p. 345 |
| American criticism since 1987 | p. 347 |
| The case of Paul de Man | p. 347 |
| Returns to history: new historicisms and postcolonial theory | p. 348 |
| Globalization, the University Excellence, and postmodern culture | p. 350 |
| Minority identity poetics: ethnic studies and queer theory | p. 351 |
| Cultural wars, PC, and public intellectuals | p. 359 |
| Resistance to hegemony: cultural studies | p. 362 |
| The disorganization of theory | p. 366 |
| Notes | p. 371 |
| Index | p. 399 |
| Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved. |
