Theories after the New Criticism: An Overview
1.	Structuralism
2.	Post-structuralism
3.	Marxism
4.	Psychoanalysis
      •	Freud: Id, ego, super ego; libido; mental mechanisms, Freudian slip
      •	Jacques Lacan: ‘The human mind is structured like language.’
		“Insistence of the Sign upon the Unconscious”
5. Postmodernism
      •	Lyotard
       •	Baudrillard
6. Feminism 
Centrality to women & their experiences & world views
      •	1st, 2nd & 3rd waves
      •	Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindications of the Rights of Women (1792)
      •	Simone de Beauvoir - Second Sex
      •	Elaine Showalter – Gynocriticism
      •	Germaine Greer
      •	Helen Cixous – (ecriture feminine = women’s writing 
      •	jouissance (Joy, pleasure, orgasm) from Lacan
      •	Luce Irigary
      •	Judith Butler
Sapho’s (Aristotle’s contemporary) poems reflect feminism.
Meera Bai, Akka Mahadevi
In the 20th century this idea became more defined and comprehensive.
Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. Simone de Beauvoir (1940s-50s) was Sartre’s companion.
How land and woman were/are considered as a property – productive, fertile, to be protected.
Gyno-criticism; Gynesis (French); Andro-genus; French versions of gyno-criticism
Ecriture Feminine – Women’s writing (ecriture = writing)
Phallogocentricism = phallus+logos+centre = male-centred representation
Feminist criticism, in simple terms, is criticism from the point of view of the woman.
Textualisation of woman
A woman’s framework of criticism
Feminism has always been concerned with resisting and opposing patriarchy, oppression and exploitation. Over the years, it has taken many forms (mild, virulent, violent, individual, collective, textual, sociopolitical. economic etc.) and has been received in various ways by the established patriarchal order.
In Malayalam:
Rajalakshmi, Lalithambika Andharjanam - Agnisakshi
Madhavikkutty, Ashitha, Sara Joseph, Gracy
Sithara S, Indu Menon, K R Meera, S Saradhakutty et al.
West:
		Mary Wollstonecraft
Virginia Woolf
		Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou
Post- structuralism has contributed to many other theoretical positions, including feminism.
Various theories have always influenced and enriched one another.
7. New Historicism
It is historical approach which tries to read texts and their contents in radically new ways by taking into account new information, research, insight etc. going back to time of a text’s production.
Along with literary sources the new historicist reader makes use of historical documents, pamphlets, official records etc. which can throw light on the production, content, reception, sources etc. of a literary work. 
New historicism is more rigorous, involved and detailed compared to old historicism.
Studying socioeconomic forces
e.g., A postcolonial reading of Tempest would invariably go outside the text (unlike the New Critics would do) and explore the economic, social and cultural matrix of geographical exploration, piracy, West’s greedy conquest of Asia, Africa, the Americas, the islands etc.
Hayden White - also called a postmodern historian. He has written about how narrative strategies (of selection/filtering, arrangement, privileging certain positions over others etc.) are fundamental in historiography, too.
That is, history, too, is a constructed narrative written from the point of view of the narrator who enjoys a privileged position with regard to language and the ability to produce a discourse.
8. Cultural Materialism
Raymond Williams – British critic and teacher; Marxian
In a work or body of works, always look for the economic/material conditions which went into the making of the text(s). That is, relate the text to the living conditions of the people, power equations/ structures, political conditions, prevalent ideas etc. which define and determine the life of the community.
Thus Sarojini Naidu’s poem “Palanquin Bearers” should/can be seen from the point of view of the underclass people who toil daily in order to make a living and for whom their labor is the only ‘capital.’ Romanticising and beautifying their experience may be an act of textual or representational violence done to them, their status and their dignity.
9. LGBT Theory
Queer Theory; queer – not normal, strange
It asserts the identity of the homosexual, the transgender, bisexual etc. and the rights of these groups/individuals to live in society with dignity and equal opportunities like all others considered ‘normal’.
Queer theory asserts that all expressions of sexuality have equal social and biological validity. It agitates for equal legitimacy to LGBT along with male and female.
Gender is a social construct decided by the dominant majority, they say.
10. Post-Colonialism
Cultural hybrids