This authoritative guide introduces the key figures in contemporary critical theory to the beginning student. Important topics in critical theory which are covered in this volume include semiotics and discourse analysis, deconstruction, feminism, queer theory, and postmodernism.

There are individual chapters on each of the following theorists: Lacan, Althusser, Barthes, Derrida, Levinas, Kristeva, Irigaray, Cixous, Foucault, Lyotard, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Bourdieu, Habermas, Jameson, and Said. Each chapter provides biographical information and details about the thinker's intellectual contexts, an explanation of key concepts, a discussion of the ways in which their theory has been applied, and suggestions for further reading. This text is designed as the perfect companion to From Kant to Lévi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory, also edited by Jon Simons.

Jon Simons is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University who has broad expertise in contemporary critical theory. He is the author of Foucault and the Political (Routledge, 1995) and the editor of and contributor to From Kant to Lévi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory and Contemporary Critical Theorists: From Lacan to Said (Edinburgh University Press, 2002 & 2004 respectively).

1 Introduction, by Jon Simons
2 Jacques Lacan, by Yannis Stavrakakis
3 Emmanuel Levinas, by Arjuna Weerasooriya
4 Louis Althusser, by Steve Smith
5 Roland Barthes, by Susan McManus and Andy Stafford
6 Jacques Derrida, by Adam Sharman
7 Luce Irigaray, by Mary Eden
8 Helene Cixous, by Julia Dobson
9 Julia Kristeva, by Moya Lloyd
10 Jean-Francois Lyotard, by Simon Tormey
11 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, by Philip Goodchild
12 Michel Foucault, by Jon Simons
13 Jean Baudrillard, by Paul Hegarty
14 Pierre Bourdieu, by Cheleen Mahar and Chris Wilkes
15 Jurgen Habermas, by Martin Morris
16 Fredric Jameson, by Nick Heffernan
17 Edward Said, by Patrick Williams