Reference Works for Literary and Cultural Theory Available to Purchase

Recent years have brought rapid growth to the bibliography of reference works for literary and cultural theory. Because of the expansion of literary scholars’ interests and of literature’s curricular domain, and the convergence of literature’s interests during the last 30 years with other humanities and social science fields, the reference collection’s PNs are filling up with content that, some would say, has lost its way from the Hs and Bs. Literature’s bid to become a more generalized study of culture in all its modes and at all its levels is highly controversial among scholars. This controversy surfaces particularly in recently published dictionaries and encyclopedias. In this article, Kieft treats other traditional classes of reference works as well and includes discussion of such “next step” works as general histories, guides, and anthologies.