ABSTRACT
This assessment of the current attempt to embrace positively theoretical ‘difference’ is certainly borne out by this diverse collection of essays. Literary theory at present, it appears, is not so much a discipline (with its foundations in a group of shared concepts and objects of study) as a culturally and institutionally constructed space within which more than a handful of multi-party debates are being conducted. To a reader looking for clever overviews and steady guidance through an array of interrelated theories, this collection will have the appearance of fragmentation. This diversity, however, should actually challenge every reader to assess his or her own theoretical proclivities and assumptions. This is a book, indeed, which illustrates the fact that literary theory is not a specialist subject but, rather, a force which often helps constitute yet just as frequently challenges the specialisms we, as readers, adopt and/or are measured by.
