Aesthetic Theory

While the imitators of great literary theorists may have produced the least lucid, most jargon-laden and most parodied literary and cultural criticism since the 18th century, editors Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse of the University of Minnesota's Theory and History of Literature series cannot be blamed for such excesses. Their 88-volume series, which contains some of the most cogent though still challenging criticism of the last 15 years, terminates with a volume from the controversial late Yale deconstructionist Paul de Man (Aesthetic Ideology) and a retranslated edition of mid-century Frankfurt School leader Theodore Adorno's Aesthetic Theory. This dignified leave-taking preempts the empty millennial speculation currently dominating postmodern studies, and leaves in its wake a generation of scholars reared on the series. (De Man: $49.95, 224p ISBN 0-8166-2203-5, $19.95 paper -2204-3; Adorno: $39.95, 448p ISBN 0-8166-1799-6, cloth only)