Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preface and acknowledgements / Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Christian Moraru -- Notes on contributors -- Introduction: world theory in the new millennium / Jeffrey R. Di Leo and Christian Moraru -- Part 1: arts and humanities -- Worlding history / Fabio López-Lázaro -- Worlding philosophy / Brian O'Keeffe -- Worlding ethics / Nigel Dower -- Worlding art / Nikos Papastergiadis -- Worlding postmodernism / Hans Bertens -- Worlding comparative literature / Christian Moraru -- Worlding popular culture / Esther Peeren -- Worlding music / John Mowitt -- Worlding cinema / Alex Taek-Gwang Lee -- Worlding theater / Gina MacKenzie -- Worlding religion / Gerda Heck and Stephan Lanz -- Part 2: social and behavioral sciences -- Worlding sociology / Veronika Wittmann -- World anthropology / Nigel Rapport -- Worlding economics / Peter Hitchcock -- Worlding psychoanalysis / Dany Nobus -- Worlding women / Robin Goodman -- Worlding gender / Vrushali Patil -- Worlding queer / Sri Craven -- Worlding identity / Zahi Zalloua -- Part 3: the professions -- Worlding higher education / Michael Thomas -- Worlding public policy / Kenneth J. Saltman -- Worlding international education / Lien Pham -- Worlding international relations / Sophia McClennen -- Worlding media studies / Toby Miller and Jesús Arroyave -- Worlding journalism / Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova -- Worlding publishing / Jeffrey R. Di Leo -- Worlding architecture / Richard Ingersoll -- Part 4: natural and formal sciences -- Worlding logic -- Paul Livingston -- Worlding spatiality studies / Robert T. Tally Jr. -- Worlding cybernetics / Andrew Culp -- Worlding systems theory / Bruce Clarke -- Worlding biology / Adam Nocek -- Worlding environmental studies / Robert P. Marzec -- Worlding earth and climate studies / Claire Colebrook.

"Disciplines from literary studies to environmentalism have recently undergone a spectacular reorientation that has refocused entire fields, methodologies, and vocabularies on the world and its sister terms such as globe, planet, and earth. The Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory examines what "world" means and what it accomplishes in different zones of academic study. The contributors raise questions such as: What happens when "world" is appended to a particular form of humanistic or scientific inquiry? How exactly does "worlding" bear on the theoretical operating system and the history of that field? What is the theory or theoretical model that allows "world" to function in a meaningful way in coordination with that knowledge domain? With contributions from thirty-eight leading theorists from a vast range of fields, including queer studies, religion, and pop culture, this is the first large reference work to consider the profound effect, both within and outside the academy, of the worlding of discourse in the 21st century"-- Provided by publisher.