Literary Theory Toolbox: An Introduction to Theory in Practice

by Jeffrey T. Nealon

An innovative new resource, The Literary Theory of Toolbox offers readers the tools to build concepts and produce analyses, rather than asking them to be passive consumers of a body of knowledge called theory. Following Gilles Deleuze, who described theory as a box of tools, the hook contends that readers need theory primarily because it does work for them. Rather than simply reproducing methods or solutions, it offers angles of intervention -- a toolbox of concepts to assist in approaching texts.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2000

About the author

Jeffrey T. Nealon is Professor of English at Penn State University. He is the author of "Double Reading: Postmodernism after Deconstruction" (1993), "Alterity Politics: Ethics and Performative Subjectivity" (1998), and "The Theory Toolbox" (2003).