Reddit reviews The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

There are two standard texts that most universities use to teach literary theory to undergrads, there is a lot of overlap between the two so you really only need one or the other, but they are the most comprehensive books you will find on the subject if you want to get a broad but complete overview.

1.) The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism

2.) Critical Theory Since 1965

You can get a used copy of the latter for only a couple bucks.

Edit: In case this matters, I teach theory at an R1 university.

Here is the textbook I used for my Critical Theory Class at UCLA. It's called the Norton Anthology of Critical Theory. While this is a good introduction to many theorists, I also suggest you to research supplemental materials on databases - ie. JSTOR - to understand movements/concepts.

There is also a comic book series that's descent depending on what you pick. While I enjoyed Foucault for Beginners, I hated Derrida for Beginners.

Lastly, Jonathan Culler's Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is an excellent entry point. I actually met Culler when I visited Cornell. He's an awesome guy. Anyways, I think Critical Theory: A Very Short Introduction should also be an excellent resource, although I haven't read it myself.

'The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism' is my go-to as an introductory anthology source. I think that warrants inclusion.

https://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Theory-Criticism/dp/0393932923

It's hard to suggest a single text, but there are many histories of the different strands of literary criticism available. There are some written by practicing specialists, and others by historians of literature. There is a multi volume work published by Cambridge UP that deals with the history of lit-crit that is very valuable, but not easily accessible, or very concise.

My suggestion would be to break down your time-frame to maybe 50 year chunks and read some of the seminal works on the major movements in lit crit during those times. This is one that's used a lot in Universities, though I must admit it wouldn't be one of my favourites (though I can absolutely support it as an introductory work). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beginning-theory-third-introduction-Beginnings/dp/0719079276/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1410136722&sr=8-8&keywords=literary+criticism

Otherwise, there's the text based approach--where you read different texts from the history of lit crit, using an anthology. The uber-bible of this sort is the http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Norton-Anthology-Theory-Criticism/dp/0393932923/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1410136722&sr=8-4&keywords=literary+criticism. There are smaller, more specific (and probably overall more helpful in a non-reference way) ones too, like this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Criticism-Theory-A-Reader/dp/0582784549/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1410136722&sr=8-11&keywords=literary+criticism.

Hope that might be of some help.
M_G

Maybe not what you're looking for, but the Norton Anthology of Critical Theory has an alternate table of contents within it that categorizes the readings not chronologically but by field.

Paul Fry's OYC lecture series: https://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-300#sessions

Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism: https://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Theory-Criticism/dp/0393932923

Can get an used copy of the above for 15 bucks or so.

A few more come to mind, less literature but more about stylistic and analytic skills you'll require in your advanced years in the Humanities.

People say to read a good style guide like Strunk & White, which is just okay. But I'd highly recommend Pinker's A Sense of Style--he also unpacks some of the problems with Strunk & White's core edicts.

Stanley Fish is just a great person to read in general. From his op-ed stuff in the NY Times to his class How to Write a Sentence: And How to Read One. I'd also highly recommend reading the full introduction of the Norton Anthology of Theory & Criticism or the introduction to Rifkin & Ryan's Literary Theory: An Anthology. When it comes to the lit theory stuff there are some good torrents with a lot of anthologies and canonical texts lumped together as PDFs. I also find a lot of good stuff with my Scribd membership.

Okay, fair point, I have not seen any actual data on the portion of radical vs non-radical feminists (though the word "radical" itself implies that group is the minority). That impression comes from the fact that, out of all the people who claim to be feminists, and all the websites claiming to be about feminism (either predominantly or incidentally), nearly all of the ones I've come across (via random links, StumbleUpon, and school research, over the course of 5+ years) are strongly pro-equality, and are vocal about not just women's rights, but men's rights, LGBT rights, and racial equality.

That's not to say those groups aren't without flaws. They're often very quick to shut down dissent and can be hostile towards honest questions (usually on the basis that they get asked the same questions all the time and the person asking should just google it). They also frequently seem to prefer only talking about men's issues independently and don't always react well when they're brought up in an existing discussion on women's issues, even though in most cases addressing minority and LGBT issues is always welcome/expected (any failure to acknowledge the existence of gay or transgender people--for instance, by talking about pregnancy as a women's issue without mentioning that trans men can also get pregnant--is usually quickly corrected, not always nicely).

But they do talk about things that affect men pretty regularly, especially traditional gender roles and how they relate to stay-at-home dads and men and boys who like traditionally "female" things, media portrayal (like the "bumbling husband" stereotype you see in almost every sitcom and commercial), child custody, and the idea that men as more suited to dangerous jobs and how this makes them seem expendable.

The only strongly anti-male feminists I've come across that were in any position of influence were the authors of the essays we read in a class on literary criticism, and those were from the 1960s. I wasn't alive then, so I have no idea what mainstream feminism was like at the time, but every example of feminist literature in the book we used (or at least every one we read, but the professor didn't seem like the type of guy to cherry pick those) was like that.

That is purely based on my own experience, though. It could be that the percentage who are anti-men is larger than it seems, but I haven't seen them because I haven't ventured to that portion of the internet.

My best advice is to try the Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism (it's expensive but you can get it from the library or buy it used - https://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Theory-Criticism/dp/0393932923). It takes the most important canonical excerpts from the most important canonical texts of theory and criticism starting basically with Plato. One advantage, as well, is that it has succinct, practical introductions to each author and text, contextualizing them, and also providing a decent bibliography for further reading. One really helpful thing for beginners is that it provides several ways of indexing/organizing the texts -- chronologically, but also by area of inquiry. Most theory beginners use this in their first Problems and Methods course.

Is this the second book you mentioned? How do you like it? I have a Norton Anthology of literature, but I haven't used it much.

It's good that you want to expand your reading! And honestly, you'll probably always feel like you're missing something. My reading list has gone out of control since I started college. The more you read the more you'll want to know!

I suppose that's what I meant by range. Being able to sample different and varying bodies of work. That way you learn a little bit, but still open up avenues for finding new information. (Like going to a grocery store and eating all the samples, but then only buying one of the products to take home to fill your tummy until the next shopping day.)

There's a couple ways you can do this: start with a really broad scope and then go specific from there. Or, start with a narrow focus and then go broad.

An example of narrow to broad: I took a class on African American Science Fiction. Which is a pretty narrow field of study. We read lots of different authors whose works were specific to African American literature (e.g. Nalo Hopkins, Octavia Butler), but also situated within the broader genre of sci-fi. So we had to pay attention to not only the African American perspective, but also what was going on in these books that was pertinent to sci-fi writing. After the class was over I got more interested in sci-fi as a genre because it can do some really cool stuff!

Broad to narrow: During the same quarter I also took a literary criticism class and we got this monstrous behemoth as a textbook: http://www.amazon.com/Norton-Anthology-Theory-Criticism-Edition/dp/0393932923 (To this day I can't look at that book without feeling anxious. It's DENSE. Helpful and interesting, but DENSE.) Anyways, for the class we read a lot of different authors with extremely diverse perspectives and focuses (e.g. Saussure, Marx, Haraway etc.). That's the type of writing (i.e. critical essays) that you can apply and find incredibly relevant in other areas. You can take one of those essays and manipulate it and use different perspectives/readings to understand another piece of work more deeply. So for my final essay in this class, I used Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto and applied it to my particular understanding of a short story we read in my African American Science Fiction.

Both of these classes allowed/forced me to read things I normally wouldn't have. They put me out of my comfort zone.

So long story short, read lots and make connections!

As far as where to start...that's really up to you. Find something that you're interested in and go from there. Like superheros? Read Watchmen by Alan Moore. Like history? Read the actual story of Pocahontas (spoiler: it's nothing like Disney). Like all of the current hullabaloo about the NSA? Read 1984.

Don't read something just because it's a classic. Read it because you're actually interested in what it's about. That being said, it's best to try and keep an open mind. Also, genre writing can get a lot of flack for not being "literary enough." But genre writing has it's own merits, they're just a little different.

If you're looking for more suggestions and are curious about what's being read in academia, try googling a university and their English dept. Often they'll link to course catalog descriptions that may include their required reading lists.

I hope this helps! :)

TL;DR Just keep reading. Really. Even reading the back of a shampoo bottle is better than nothing.