June 13, 2008
Why Today's Publishing World Is Reprising the Past
Literary theory seems caught in a holding pattern. Instead of the heady manifestoes and rampant invention of the late 1960s through the early 80s, it has turned retrospective. This turn says something about the state of literary criticism, as well as the humanities and the university today.
One sign of the retrospective stance is a wave of reprints, notably a cluster of anniversary editions. Two of them, published last year, provide bookends for the heyday of theory. The Johns Hopkins
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