Criticism, literary theory and ideology

The essays in this volume examine contemporary criticism and literary theory as responses to questions elicited by readers' recognition of the presence of ideology in literary works. These responses are themselves ideological. The term « ideology » here designates a system of ideas in criticism and theory. This system allows the reader/critic to read ideology in literature according to prevalent conceptions regarding gender, race, reality, political, social and cultural situations, the use of ethics in literature, and literature itself. The examples of ideology studied here deal with principal critical and theoretical orientations and cover a broad geographical range - the Americas, European countries, India, China, etc. The diversity of the use of ideology in literary studies is critical, while at the same time it fully recognizes literature's status as literature. This volume is organized in 2 parts : Theory and ideology, Literary/Cultural Production and Pedagogy.