Books by Jonathan Culler

With an emphasis on readers and reading, Jonathan Culler considered deconstruction in terms of the questions raised by psychoanalytic, feminist, and reader-response criticism. On Deconstruction is both an authoritative synthesis of Derrida's thought and an analysis of the often-problematic relation between his philosophical writings and the work of literary critics. Culler's book is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in understanding modern critical thought. This edition marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first publication of this landmark work and includes a new preface by the author that surveys deconstruction's history since the 1980s and assesses its place within cultural theory today.

This work explores the role of the literary in theory, with wide-ranging analysis of key concepts and disciplinary practices.

Is academic writing, particularly in the disciplines of literary theory and cultural studies, needlessly obscure? "Just Being Difficult?" provides learned and thoughtful analyses of the entire question of how critical writing relates to its intended publics and to audiences beyond them.

A classic survey of structuralist literary criticism combined with a discussion about how English and American criticism might benefit from its lessons.

Here this immensely influential 20 year old title is reissued due to its continuing relevance as a tool in understanding the literary movement that has dominated recent Anglo-American literary criticism.