This groundbreaking collection provokes a major reassessment of the significance of tragedy and the tragic in late modernity. A distinguished group of scholars and theorists extend the discussion of tragedy beyond its usual parameters to include film, popular culture, and contemporary politics. Seven new essays - as well as eight essays originally published in a New Literary History special issue on tragedy - address important, previously neglected areas of tragedy and postcolonial criticism. The new material explores the tragic dimensions of popular culture, the relationship between tragedy and pity, and feminism’s avoidance of the tragic, and includes an incisive history of tragic theory. Classic and cutting-edge, this collection offers a provocative, accessible, and comprehensive treatment of tragedy and tragic theory.