Introduction: Toward Decolonized and Student-Centered Teaching of Critical Theory

Gautam Basu Thakur is associate professor of English and director of the critical theory minor at Boise State University, where he teaches theoretical psychoanalysis, postcoloniality and globalization studies, and literature of the British Empire. His books include Postcolonial Theory and Avatar (2015), Lacan and the Nonhuman (coedited, 2018), Postcolonial Lack (2020), and Reading Lacan's Seminar VIII (coedited, 2020).

Helena Gurfinkel is professor of English at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she teaches primarily critical theory and Victorian literature and culture. She is the author of Outlaw Fathers in Victorian and Modern British Literature: Queering Patriarchy (2014; paperback 2017) and is currently writing a book on the Soviet television and film adaptations of the works of Oscar Wilde. She has published extensively in pedagogy, literary and film studies, gender studies, and critical theory. She is editor of PLL: Papers on Language and Literature.