Fredric Jameson is an American literary critic and Marxist political theorist renowned for his incisive analysis of contemporary cultural trends. He delves into how cultural phenomena are shaped by the pressures of organized capitalism, famously characterizing postmodernism as the spatialization of culture. Jameson explores the underlying structures of late capitalism that mold these cultural expressions and their connection to prevailing political and social forces. His work provides a profound lens through which to understand the intricate relationship between culture, ideology, and economic power.
The book offers insightful lectures on prominent figures in French theory, showcasing the perspectives of a leading Marxist critic from America. It delves into the intellectual contributions and influences of these theorists, providing a critical analysis that connects their ideas to contemporary thought. Through these explorations, the author illuminates the complexities and nuances of French theory, making it accessible to a broader audience while engaging with its revolutionary implications.
Mimesis, Expression, Construction brings Fredric Jameson's famous Duke University seminar on Adorno's AestheticTheory into print for the first time.
The giant of literary theory analyzes the novel: Conrad, James, Atwood, Oe, Mailer, Grass, Grossman, Garcia Márquez, Gibson, Knausgaard and more
"A comprehensive new reading of Walter Benjamin's major works, as well as a great number of his less well-known publications, from one of America's foremost cultural and literary critics"-- Provided by publisher
"This major new work by Fredric Jameson is not a book about 'method,' but it does propose a dialectic capable of holding together in one breath the heterogeneities that reflect our biological individualities, our submersion in collective history and class struggle, and our alienation to a disembodied new world of information and abstraction. Eschewing the arid secularities of philosophy, Walter Benjamin once recommended the alternative of the rich figurality of an older theology; in that spirit we here return to the antiquated Ptolemaic systems of ancient allegory and its multiple levels (a proposal first sketched out in The Political Unconscious); it is tested against the epic complexities of the overtly allegorical works of Dante, Spenser and the Goethe of Faust II, as well as symphonic form in music, and the structure of the novel, postmodern as well as Third World: about which a notorious essay on National Allegory is here reprinted with a theoretical commentary; and an allegorical history of emotion is meanwhile rehearsed from its contemporary, geopolitical context"-- Provided by publisher
Controversial manifesto by acclaimed cultural theorist debated by leading writers Fredric Jameson’s pathbreaking essay “An American Utopia” radically questions standard leftist notions of what constitutes an emancipated society. Advocated here are—among other things—universal conscription, the full acknowledgment of envy and resentment as a fundamental challenge to any communist society, and the acceptance that the division between work and leisure cannot be overcome. To create a new world, we must first change the way we envision the world. Jameson’s text is ideally placed to trigger a debate on the alternatives to global capitalism. In addition to Jameson’s essay, the volume includes responses from philosophers and political and cultural analysts, as well as an epilogue from Jameson himself. Many will be appalled at what they will encounter in these pages—there will be blood! But perhaps one has to spill such (ideological) blood to give the Left a chance. Contributing are Kim Stanley Robinson, Jodi Dean, Saroj Giri, Agon Hamza, Kojin Karatani, Frank Ruda, Alberto Toscano, Kathi Weeks, and Slavoj Žižek.
Cultural critic Fredric Jameson, renowned for his incisive studies of the passage of modernism to postmodernism, returns to the movement that dramatically broke with all tradition in search of progress for the first time since his acclaimed A Singular Modernity . The Modernist Papers is a tour de froce of anlysis and criticism, in which Jameson brings his dynamic and acute thought to bear on the modernist literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Jameson discusses modernist poetics, including intensive discussions of the work of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Wallace Stevens, Joyce, Proust, and Thomas Mann. He explores the peculiarties of the American literary field, taking in William Carlos Williams and the American epic, and examines the language theories of Gertrude Stein. Refusing to see modernism as simply a Western phenomenon he also pays close attention to its Japanese expression; while the complexities of a late modernist representation of twentieth-century politics are articulated in a concluding section on Peter Weiss’s novel The Aesthetics of Resistance. Challenging our previous understanding of the literature of this pperiod, this monumental work will come to be regarded as the classic study of modernism.
"Raymond Chandler, a dazzling stylist and portrayer of American life, holds a unique place in literary history, straddling both pulp fiction and modernism. With The Big Sleep, published in 1939, he left an indelible imprint on the detective novel. Fredric Jameson offers an interpretation of Chandler's work that reconstructs both the context in which it was written and the social world or totality it projects. Chandler's invariable setting, Los Angeles, appears both as a microcosm of the United States and a prefiguration of its future: a megalopolis uniquely distributed by an unpromising nature into a variety of distinct neighborhoods and private worlds. But this essentially urban and spatial work seems also to be drawn towards a vacuum, an absence that is nothing other than death. With Chandler, the thriller genre becomes metaphysical."--Amazon.com
Praise for A Singular Modernity : Fredric Jameson is America's leading Marxist critic. A prodigiously energetic thinker whose writings sweep majestically from Sophocles to science fiction. -Terry Eagleton Praise for Postmodernism : For anybody hoping to understand not just the cultural but the political and social implications of postmodernism ... Jameson's book is a fundamental, nonpareil text. - Sunday Times The scope and profundity of Postmodernism , covering theory, architecture, film, video and economics, is truly staggering ... Brilliant. - Independent
This scholarly work presents a novel approach to understanding Marx's philosophy by illustrating its development through the metaphor of a musical score. It captures the nuances and evolution of his ideas, allowing readers to appreciate the rhythm and harmony in Marx's thought process. The format offers an innovative lens through which to explore complex theories, making it accessible and engaging for both scholars and those new to Marxist theory.