This authoritative guide covers the whole range of critical theory, including the Frankfurt school, cultural materialism, cultural studies, gender studies, film studies, literary theory, hermeneutics, historical materialism, and socio-political criticaltheory. Entries clearly explain complex theoretical discourses such as Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, deconstruction, and postmodernism. There are biographies of hundreds of important figures in the field, with feature entries for those who haveheavily influenced areas of the discipline, such as Derrida and Deleuze.