aeo The first introduction to the work of Lacan, Derrida and Kristeva in one volume. aeo Works carefully through key texts by the leading contemporary theorists. aeo Clear, accessible and introductory. aeo Challenges recent attacks on theory and on Derrida.

"Deconstruction," "psychoanalysis," and "semiotics" have becoem part of the vocabulary of contempoarry culture. Reading Theory introduces the principal texts by Lacan, Derrida, and Kristeva that lie behind these terms and that provide their contexts. This book concentrates its attention on making accessiblw what these three theorists have written, rather than offering a synthetin abstraction of the fashionable terminology of theory.

In addition to these detailed readings Michael Payne examines and introduces the manifestos of each writer, their "readings" of paintings, and provides a systematic response to their critics.