It has held sway in the humanities for nearly four decades, surviving even the great culture wars. But it is being used in surprising ways. Either literary theory is dead, or it’s invincible. It all ...

For at least a half-century, scholars have been adopting literary approaches to the New Testament inspired by certain branches of literary criticism and theory. In this book, Michal Beth Dinkler uses ...

Literary criticism once had an outsize reach, influencing the terms and concepts of disciplines like art and legal studies. With it came an outsize ego. During the 1970s and 80s, the heyday of ...

Anyone who has taught a college literature course has likely heard a student say, “Can’t I just enjoy the book?” This frustration with literary theory is common. Many undergraduates feel that theory ...

In his latest book, Microsoft software developer turned literature professor Dennis Yi Tenen takes us all the way back to 17th-century apps for a deep dive into computer science and literature’s ...

Today in literature: the rise and fall of literary theory, a very expensive Great Gatsby book jacket is hitting the auction block, and Agatha Christie's surf secrets get their own book.

Before blocked writers could turn to ChatGPT for help, they might have consulted Wycliffe Hill’s 1930s manual, “The Plot Genie.” The genie’s magic was held in a series of numbered lists that, ...

“Literary Theory for Robots,” by Dennis Yi Tenen, a software engineer turned literature professor, shows how the “intelligence” in artificial intelligence is irreducibly human. By Jennifer Szalai When ...

Literary theory encompasses the frameworks and concepts by which we analyse texts, interrogate narrative structures and understand the social, historical and philosophical underpinnings of literature.