Reddit reviews Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide

This website is rather painful to use on a modern web browser, but has clearly written and illustrative definitions of various types of critical theory, as well as descriptions of figures of interest and their work.

If you'd like an introductory overview of the primary genres of critical theory that goes into somewhat more depth and includes suggested readings, I can recommend Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide. Tyson makes it very accessible by repeatedly analyzing The Great Gatsby through the lens of each theory, which is extremely helpful for understanding the "big picture" of what each tends to focus on.

Welcome to the rabbit hole! :)

I like Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today. Also, if you're interested in online resources, this professor's website for a critical theory class has tons and tons of links to interesting stuff - even though the website is hard to navigate sometimes. Check out the syllabus and online resources (linked at the bottom.)

For one of my literary theory classes in undergrad, we used this book. The author analyzes 'The Great Gatsby' through the lens of 10 or 12 critical frameworks. It was really illuminating, clear, and enjoyable to read. Lit theory is the focus, but it also provided a lot of insight into the fundamental ideas of the various critical perspectives that were highlighted. Definitely recommended.

Critical theory does tend to be cryptic, deliberately so in a lot of cases. You might enjoy Baudrillard's America. It's fairly accessible as far as his stuff goes, if you have a rudimentary understanding of his Hyperreal idea.

John Berger's Ways of Seeing (absolutely brilliant)

Ron Carlson Writes a Story

Critical Theory Today

Wilhelm Reich-The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Amy Bloom-Normal

Tom Stoppard-Arcadia

Sara Marcus-Girls to the Front

English major here- I have found Lois Tyson's textbook Critical Theory Today very clear and helpful!

http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Theory-Today-User-Friendly-Guide/dp/0415974100

I actually just started by reading a textbook that covered most major critical theories http://www.amazon.com/Critical-Theory-Today-User-Friendly-Guide/dp/0415974100

It depends on where you think meaning is located. If you think the author/director/etc. is the creator of the meaning in a text, (and movies are texts) then you may just want to read interviews with the creators. But, if you're like me, and don't believe that the author is the authority on meaning in a text, then you might be better served by reading up on critical theory.

This is an introductory book on the topic. It's really easy to understand and shows many contemporary (and out of fasion) lenses that critical theorists use to examine texts. Tyson applies all of them to The Great Gatsby so you can see how they work on the same primary source, which is really helpful.

It really opens up a lot of movies/books/graphic novels to meaning that isn't exactly obvious. You become a bit of a detective of texts. For example, there are compelling arguments that Who Framed Roger Rabbit is about racial gentrification. How cool is that? What seems like a mostly fun, not too deep movie, has these really mature and relevant topics under the surface.