Theory as Variation is a collection that attempts to showcase the protean performance of theory as it moves from the world into the text and back out into the world again. Theory by its very nature resists totalization and normativization, and the essays assembled here demonstrate the ability of theory to perform contingently in a variety of contexts in response to a broad range of textual problems and worldly challenges. The distinguished contributors to this volume are drawn from all over the world, and each essay achieves “theory” in its own singular way. From poststructuralism to postcoloniality, from “metropolitan” to “indigenous” theory, from different practices of Marxist cultural theory and critical race theory to broader forms of ontological thinking, from contexts national to conjunctures international, from the “world as text” to “the textuality of the world,” this volume endeavors to show that theory is and always will be a specific form of praxis.