Introducing Criticism at the 21st Century provides a wide-ranging guide to current directions in literary criticism. The book develops out of continental thinking and insights from poststructuralism, feminism, deconstruction and psychoanalysis and introduces new modes of 'hybrid' criticism which are emerging at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The chapters provide thought-provoking overviews of critical thinking at the cutting edge. Each of the authors explains in lucid terms the various contours of their discourses while bringing these into sharp relief for the student reader through readings of canonical novels, poems, plays, films and websites. The book is organised into five areas of critical concern - Identities, Dialogues, Space and Place, Critical Voices and Materiality and the Immaterial. These orientations reflect the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of critical and cultural studies, as do the themes covered within the volume: Diaspora Criticism, Gender and Transgender Criticism, Women of Color and Feminist Criticism, Chaos Theory, Complexity Theory and Criticism, Ethical Criticism, Trauma and Testimonial Criticism, Ecocriticism, Spatial Criticism, Cybercriticism, Deleuzean Criticism, Levinas and Criticism, Spectral Criticism and (A)material Criticism. Features * Addresses the various 'states of criticism' at the beginning of the century * Textbook structure: each chapter explores and explains aspects of the theory it addresses, provides a brief 3-4 page reading of a literary text, film text or website and concludes with questions for further consideration, an annotated bibliography and a supplementary bibliography * The critical readings provide a teaching and study resource and demonstrate the scope of theoretical applications