a Very Short Introduction

A couple of weeks ago I read Jonathan Culler's Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (from the Oxford University Press series) for the fourth time. (I've made it a habit to read it every fall ever since I came back to school.) I thought maybe it would help me think about theory a little bit more productively, but...no such luck. (But that's my own fault, not that of the book...)

Culler organizes the book (very short indeed, clocking in at 132 pages for the main text) not by schools of thought but rather by the approaches those various schools take to examine different topics. So, by moving from topics such as sexuality to the meanings of sentences, Culler explains how different theoretical frameworks enhance our understanding of the objects we study, as well as our understandings of the theoretical frameworks themselves.

The book helps me most by reminding me of the important texts I should be reading (or...should have read three years ago). The book is from 1997 so it's been a while, but many of the fundamental texts remain the same, for obvious reasons. And of course, there is always the fun of reading a Very Short Introduction. Who wouldn't want to read one for The Earth, or Quantum Theory, or The Mind? Seriously.