Deconstruction’s rise marked literary criticism’s transition into literary theory.

Evidence

It was in the moment of the emergence of this full-scale technology -launched, paradoxically enough, in contemptuous dismissal of rationalism for its claims to scientificity - that literary criticism in the English-speaking countries gave way to what came to be known as literary theory. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 230

Categorization

• DEFINE: A specific historical dating/distinction of ‘literary theory’ as supplanting ‘literary criticism’ in Anglophone academe.
• XREF: connects to: Deconstruction and structuralism, not Western Marxism, formed the theoretical ground of 1980s American criticism — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 239; Modern academic postmodernism grew from 1980s literary deconstruction — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 243

Broader Connections

• Deconstruction and structuralism, not Western Marxism, formed the theoretical ground of 1980s American criticism #complicates (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 239