Critical Questions: Invention, Creativity, and the Criticism of Discourse and Media

by William L. Nothstine, Carole Blair

Critical Questions is an anthology of original and reprinted essays on criticism of discourse and media. It explores the subject of critical invention, the variety of practices by which the fundamental questions guiding critical research are developed, refined, and justified. Practicing critics have contributed thirteen paired an original discussion of inventional practices with respect to a specific critical essay of theirs, and the reprinted essay itself.
Part I examines the process of critical invention and explains the maxims by which the anthologized essays are organized. In Part II, well-known critics discuss how they compose their critical projects, with reference to the specific essays reprinted here. The commentary pieces demystify the process of writing criticism, investigating how critical questions arise, how critics select their critical stance and subject matter, and how criticism evolves and changes during the process of writing.

452 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1994