The primary aim of this Theories and Methodologies special feature (PMLA, March 2024) is to spotlight work on 'the Persianate' in the disciplines of language and literature. The essayists examine the aesthetic, cultural, linguistic, political, religious, economic, and social currents that both construct the Persianate world and compromise it at key moments not just in history but also in certain analytic contexts.

The eight essays that appear in the Theories and Methodologies section of the January 2024 issue of PMLA examine core concepts derived from the premodern compendium of Arabic thought—associated with the disciplines of aesthetics, jurisprudence, philosophy, rhetoric, theology, and more—and activate them as nodes of theoretical contemplation.

What literary works should we look to for new perspectives on materiality? Which methods hold promise today?

On "the inspiring resistance that the [Middle Ages] imposes on us, and the hermeneutic difficulty—maybe even the impossibility—of accessing medieval culture."

In 2001, when Bill Brown published his essay on “Thing Theory,” it seemed that scholars were tired of subjects. But now, nearly two decades later, one must wonder if we’ve also grown tired of things.

What if our accounts of the way we read “now,” as well as our narratives of the discipline’s history, were to set out not from a catalog of eras or turns, but instead from more particularized, more fluid temporalities?

How Juliette Lee's poem is an example of Tina Y. Chen's "critical geographies."

Who wants more reality? Not the culture we live in, if we are to believe the current trends that made "Avatar" a  hit and finances' fictitious dream-making our burden.