New Historicism: a Critical Approach

Pursuing Lost Histories & Examining Tools of Subjugation and Repression

Since the 1990s, New Historicism has been used as the umbrella for both historical and cultural approaches to critical study of the arts. It shares many of the same concerns as Marxist Criticism.

The Key Players

Michel Foucault: The poststructuralist philosopher that many New Historicist pull their understanding of knowledge, power, and subjugation from.

Stephen Greenblatt: One of the founding members of the New Historicist approach. While he coined the term “New Historicism,” he only used it casually.

The Two Main Branches of New Historicism

New Historicism: New Historicism concentrates on top tier hierarchy that involves institutions or power (upper classes, government, monarchy, churches). It draws from political science and anthropology due to its examination of governance. New Historicism is an American construct.

Cultural Materialism: Cultural Materialism concentrates on the bottom tier of social structures (lower classes, women, and marginalized peoples). It draws from economics and sociology due to its focus on commodification, class, and socio-economic structures. Cultural Materialism is a British construct.

New Historicism	Cultural Materialism
Historical	Contemporary
Elite Literary Culture	Popular Culture
Pessimistic regarding resistance	Optimistic regarding resistance
American	British

Key Terms in New Historicism

• Liminal Space: A space or threshold where anything can happen.
• Hegemony: The process of how dominant cultures or groups maintain dominance.
• Body Politic: A monarch’s body is both Natural and Politic, thus the use of third person plural.
• History: New Historicists reject grand narratives and prefer small narratives. 
• Ideology: New Historicists ascribe to post-laconian and post-Marxist ideologies. Recognizing your own ideology is difficult to see because it is the glass through which you see the world.
• Power & Knowledge: Foucault’s model says that “Power produces Knowledge (as discourse)” (Parker 270).
• power regulates, polices, disciplines, & surveils.
• power leads us to internalize it.

Suggested Reading

Baldick, Chris. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Felluga, Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical Theory. Purdue U, 28 Nov. 2003. Web 24 Jan. 2016. 

Foucault, Michel. “From Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1490-1502.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: Volume 1: An Introduction. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.

Foucault, Michel. “What is an Author?” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 1475-1490.

Parker, Robert Dale. How to Interpret Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.

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