Catherine Belsey in Conversation

What is literature, after Theory? What is the nature and purpose of literary and cultural criticism? Is cultural studies the alternative to literary studies? Are poststructuralism and feminism alive and well? In an age of deconstruction and difference, how valid is "aesthetics" as a paradigm for literary and cultural studies? Does the category of Truth/truth, Reality/reality, or History/history have a place in 21st-century critical practice? What is the role of pleasure in the profession of literary and cultural studies? These are some of the questions addressed by Catherine Belsey in the interview with David Jonathan Bayot. This discussion--candid and provocative--is a helpful introduction to the ideas of a most significant voice in literary and cultural criticism today.