Critical Theory Index Mapping the Terrain of Critical Thought

Mapping the Terrain of Critical Thought

Critical Theory Index

Stories, ideas & perspectives — thoughtfully written, beautifully told.

Cover story

Rewriting the Foundation: How Critical Race and Postcolonial Frameworks Are Dismantling the Western Literary Canon

Across American universities, English and comparative literature departments are engaged in a profound reckoning with which texts, authors, and theoretical voices are deemed foundational. Driven by the intersecting imperatives of Critical Race Theory and postcolonial scholarship, this curricular transformation is not merely additive—it is structural, challenging the very epistemological premises upon which the Western canon was constructed. What follows is an examination of the institutional con

Read the story →

Latest Articles

Cultural Criticism

Sixty Seconds of Foucault: The Promise and Peril of Critical Theory's Viral Moment

Critical theory has escaped the seminar room—and it did so through an algorithm. On TikTok and adjacent platforms, concepts drawn from Foucault, Marx, Judith Butler, and bell hooks now circulate among millions of users who have never encountered a university syllabus. This opinion piece interrogates what this viral dispersal actually means for intellectual culture: whether it represents a genuine democratization of critical thought or a process of flattening that ultimately serves the same atten