Hedgehog Review Reassesses Literary Theory a Half-Century After Poststructuralism Left Paris

The Hedgehog Review has published an essay reconsidering literary theory roughly fifty years after poststructuralism emerged from Parisian lecture halls. According to the piece, the intellectual movement went on to encounter both unexpected acclaim and sharp hostility in the English-speaking world. The essay argues that sufficient time has now passed since the culture wars of the 1980s and 1990s to allow a clearer-eyed assessment of theory and its legacy. That premise, the text notes, is one that only appears self-evident. The reflection is framed as a look back at what the literary theory generation produced, weighing the movement's trajectory from its academic origins in Paris to its contested reception in Anglophone universities and public debate. The essay appears in the Hedgehog Review, a publication devoted to critical inquiry into contemporary culture.