International Journal of
Information and Education Technology

Abstract

In his 2003 book, written in French under the title of French Theory, François Cusset examined how some of the main French thinkers of the sixties and seventies –such as Derrida, Foucault and Kristeva– influenced the development of the humanities in the American academia. The purpose of my research is to see if it is possible to follow the journey described by Cusset through the critical bibliography published about these French intellectual ―stars.‖ Thus, I quantitatively analyze the references to the work of the authors that constitute the French Theory. Since this kind of study is seldom done in literary studies, it implies overcoming several technological and methodological challenges, such as the architecture of the main literary database, the Modern Language International Bibliography, and the lack of tools to easily obtain bibliometric indicators. However, I conclude that this approach is perfectly suitable for analyzing the circulation of ideas and for studying the evolution of literary trends.