The New Critical Idiom is an invaluable series of introductory guides designed to meet the needs of today's students grappling with the complexities of modern critical terminology. Each book in the series provides:
With a strong emphasis on clarity, lively debate and the widest possible breadth of examples, The New Critical Idiom is an indispensable guide to key topics in literary studies.
By Karen Petroski
April 20, 2023
Does fiction enhance reality or threaten our sense of what is real? What, if anything, is special about experiencing fictional works and worlds? Today we speak casually of parallel universes and virtual reality; how much do we really know about what these phenomena involve? In Fictionality, Karen ...
By Greg Garrard
March 28, 2023
Ecocriticism explores the ways in which we imagine and portray the relationship between humans and the environment across many areas of cultural production, including Romantic poetry, wildlife documentaries, climate models, the Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, and novels by Margaret ...
By Yaël Schlick
October 26, 2022
Metafiction explores the great variety and effects of this popular genre and style, variously defined as a type of literature that philosophically questions itself, that repudiates the conventions of literary realism, that questions the relationship between fiction and reality, or that lies at the ...
By Sheila Hones
May 11, 2022
Literary Geography provides an introduction to work in the field, making the interdiscipline accessible and visible to students and academics working in literary studies and human geography, as well as related fields such as the geohumanities, place writing and geopoetics. Emphasising the long ...
By Graham Allen
October 15, 2021
This successful introduction to intertextuality deftly introduces this crucial area and relates its significance to key theories and movements in the study of literature. The third edition is updated to include a brand new chapter, looking at intermediality, and how the study of intertextuality has...
By Lucie Armitt
March 24, 2020
Fantasy provides an invaluable and accessible guide to the study of this fascinating field. Covering literature, film, television, ballet, light opera and visual art and featuring a historical overview from Ovid to the Toy Story franchise, this book takes the reader through the key landmark ...
By Lucy Bond, Stef Craps
October 23, 2019
Trauma has become a catchword of our time and a central category in contemporary theory and criticism. In this illuminating and accessible volume, Lucy Bond and Stef Craps: provide an account of the history of the concept of trauma from the late nineteenth century to the present day examine ...
By Carrie Hintz
October 31, 2019
Children’s Literature is an accessible introduction to this engaging field. Carrie Hintz offers a defining conceptual overview of children’s literature that presents its competing histories, its cultural contexts, and the theoretical debates it has instigated. Positioned within the wider field of ...
By Terry Gifford
October 25, 2019
Updated throughout, this new edition provides a clear and invaluable introduction to the study of pastoral. Terry Gifford traces the history of the genre from its classical origins through to contemporary writing and introduces the major writers and critical issues relating to pastoral. Gifford ...
By Martin Orkin, Alexa Alice Joubin
January 24, 2019
Race offers a compelling introduction to the study of ideas related to race throughout history. Its breadth of coverage, both geographically and temporally, provides readers with an expansive, global understanding of the term from the classical period onwards. This concise guide offers an overview ...
By John T. Gilmore
November 24, 2017
What is satire? How can we define it? Is it a weapon for radical change or fundamentally conservative? Is satire funny or cruel? Does it always need a target or victim? Combining thematic, theoretical and historical approaches, John T. Gilmore introduces and investigates the tradition of satire ...
By Ika Willis
October 10, 2017
Reception introduces students and academics alike to the study of the way in which texts are received by readers, viewers, and audiences. Organized conceptually and thematically, this book provides a much-needed overview of the field, drawing on work in literary and cultural studies as well as...
