The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to critical theory:

Critical theory – the examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism. This has led to the very literal use of 'critical theory' as an umbrella term to describe any theory founded upon critique. The term "Critical Theory" was first coined by Max Horkheimer in his 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory".

Essence of critical theory

• Cultural studies –
• Critical theorists –
• Works in critical theory –
• Truth theory –

Concepts

• Aesthetics^[1]
• Agency (sociology)^[1]
• Authorship^[1]
• History^[1]
• Human rights^[1]
• Ideology^[1]
• Law^[1]
• Money^[1]
• Objectivity and subjectivity^[1]
• Sex–gender distinction^[1]

Branches of critical theory

• Social theory –
• Literary theory –
• Thing theory –
• Critical theory of technology –
• Critical legal studies –
• Hermeneutics –

Actor–network theory

Commonly used terms

• Articulation (sociology)^[1]
• Assemblage (philosophy)^[1]
• Blackboxing^[1]

African-American studies

• Henry Louis Gates Jr. –
• Frantz Fanon –

Gender studies

• Lauren Berlant –
• Judith Butler –
• Raewyn Connell –
• Susan McClary –
• Laura Mulvey –

Marxist theory

Commonly used terms

Postcolonialism

• Chinua Achebe –
  • "An Image of Africa" –
• Frantz Fanon –
  • "The Wretched of the Earth" –
• Homi Bhabha –
  • Double consciousness –

Structuralism

• Roland Barthes –
• Ferdinand de Saussure –
• Claude Lévi-Strauss –
• Louis Althusser –

Post-structuralism

• Roland Barthes –
• Michel Foucault –
• Julia Kristeva –
• Bruno Latour –

Commonly used terms

• Archaeology^[1]
• Critical apparatus^[1]
• Event (philosophy)^[1]
• Heterotopia (space)^[1]

Deconstruction

Commonly used terms

• Bricolage^[1]

Postmodern Philosophy

• Jean-François Lyotard –
• Gilles Deleuze –
• Félix Guattari –
• Ernesto Laclau –
• Claude Lefort –
• A Cyborg Manifesto –

Reconstructivism

• Paulo Freire –
• John Dewey –

Psychoanalytic theory

Commonly used terms

Schizoanalytic theory

• Félix Guattari –
• Gilles Deleuze –
• Deleuze and Guattari –

Commonly used terms

• Assemblage (philosophy)^[1]
• Body without organs^[1]
• Rhizome (philosophy)^[1]

Queer theory

• Judith Butler –
• Heteronormativity –
• Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick –
• Gloria E. Anzaldúa –
• New Queer Cinema –
• Queer pedagogy –

Semiotics

• Roland Barthes –
• Julia Kristeva –
• Charles Sanders Peirce –
• Ferdinand de Saussure –

Commonly used terms

• Semiotic square^[1]

Literary theory

• Mikhail Bakhtin

Commonly used terms

• Carnivalesque^[1]
• Chronotope^[1]
• Dialogic^[1]
• Narratology^[1]
• Heteroglossia^[1]

Cultural anthropology

• René Girard –

Theories of identity

• Private sphere – certain sector of societal life in which an individual enjoys a degree of authority, unhampered by interventions from governmental or other institutions. Examples of the private sphere are family and home. The complement or opposite of public sphere.
• Public sphere – area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. It is "a discursive space in which individuals and groups congregate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment."
• Creolization

Linguistical theories of literature

• Mary Louise Pratt –

Major works

• Bloch, Ernst (1938–47). The Principle of Hope
• Fromm, Erich (1941). The Fear of Freedom (UK)/Escape from Freedom (US)
• Horkheimer, Max; Adorno, Theodor W. (1944–47). Dialectic of Enlightenment
• Barthes, Roland (1957). Mythologies
• Habermas, Jürgen (1962). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• Marcuse, Herbert (1964). One-Dimensional Man
• Adorno, Theodor W. (1966). Negative Dialectics
• Derrida, Jacques (1967). Of Grammatology
• Derrida, Jacques (1967). Writing and Difference
• Habermas, Jürgen (1981). The Theory of Communicative Action

Major theorists