Acknowledgments. Introduction:. Formative Moments in the History of Literary Criticism. Historical Backgrounds of Modern Criticism and Theory. The Scope of Modern Literary and Cultural Criticism. 1. The First Decades: From Liberal Humanism to Formalism . The New Humanists, Neo-Romantics, and Precursors of Formalism. The Background of Modernism. The Poetics of Modernism: W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot. Formalism:. Russian Formalism:. Boris Eichenbaum (1886-1959). Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1895-1975). Roman Jakobson (1896-1982). The New Criticism:. John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974). William K. Wimsatt, Jr. (1907-1975) and Monroe C. Beardsley (1915-1985). 2. Socially Conscious Criticism of the Earlier Twentieth Century. F. R. Leavis (1895-1978) and Scrutiny. Marxist and Left-Wing Criticism:. Socialist Criticism in Britain. The Fundamental Principles of Marxism. Marxist Literary Criticism: A Historical Overview. Early Feminist Criticism: Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir:. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). 3. Criticism and Theory After the Second World War . Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) and Phenomenology. Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Existentialism. Georges Bataille (1897-1962) and Heterology. Structuralism:. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). Roland Barthes (1915-1980). 4. The Era of Poststructuralism (I): Later Marxism, Psychoanalysis, Deconstruction. Later Marxist Criticism:. Terry Eagleton (b. 1943). Psychoanalysis: Freud and Lacan:. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Jacques Lacan (1901-1981). Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Deconstruction. 5. The Era of Poststructuralism (II): Postmodernism, Modern Feminism, Gender Studies. Postmodernism:. Jurgen Habermas (b. 1929). Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007). Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998). bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins; b. 1952). Modern Feminism:. French Feminism. American Feminism. British Feminism. Julia Kristeva (b. 1941). Helene Cixous (b. 1937). Gender Studies:. Gayle Rubin (b. 1949). Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (b. 1950). Judith Butler (b. 1956). 6. The Later Twentieth Century: New Historicism, Reader-Response Theory, and Postcolonial Criticism . New Historicism:. Michel Foucault (1926-1984). Reader-Response and Reception Theory:. Wolfgang Iser (b. 1926). Stanley Fish (b. 1938). Postcolonial Criticism:. Edward Said (1935-2004). Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (b. 1942). Homi K. Bhabha (b. 1949). Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (b. 1950). 7. Cultural Studies and Film Theory. Cultural Studies:. Raymond Williams (1921-1988). Stuart Hall (b. 1932). Dick Hebdige (b. 1951). John Fiske. Susan Bordo (b. 1947). Film Theory:. Andrew Sarris (b. 1928) and Auteur Theory. Jim Kitses: The Study of Genre. Christian Metz (1931-1993): A Psychoanalytic Perspective. Laura Mulvey (b. 1941): Feminist Film Theory. 8. Contemporary Directions: The Return of the Public Intellectual. The New Liberalism: Martha Nussbaum, Elaine Scarry, John Carey:. Martha Nussbaum (b. 1947). Elaine Scarry (b. 1946). John Carey (b. 1934). The New Aestheticism. The New Theorists of Revolution: Zizek, Hardt, Negri. Slavoj Zizek (b. 1949). Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri: The Concept of Empire. Epilogue: The Myth of Liberal Humanism. Index