On Jameson
From Postmodernism to Globalization
Published on 21. December 2005
Book
Hardback
296 pages
978-0-7914-6591-2 (ISBN)
Description
Offers an interrogation of Jameson's critical legacy.
One of the leading figures in the debate over postmodernism in the 1980s and 1990s, Fredric Jameson is regarded as the most important Marxist theoretician and cultural critic writing in America today. Although Jameson's significance as a global intellectual has been widely recognized for some time, none of the literature covers the full range of his work. This timely collection reflects on Jameson's entire body of work and demonstrates its potential to shape the emerging field of globalization studies. Experts in literary theory, Slavic studies, film criticism, and Biblical studies explore the significance of Jameson's work for their diverse fields. The contributors treat Jameson's work as a complicated and interconnected whole, and deal with many topics, including his influence in China and Russia, his interests in second- and third-world cinema and literature, and his lifelong passion for science fiction. As On Jameson reveals, integrating these concerns is Jameson's project of producing a critical theory of contemporary global cultures.
One of the leading figures in the debate over postmodernism in the 1980s and 1990s, Fredric Jameson is regarded as the most important Marxist theoretician and cultural critic writing in America today. Although Jameson's significance as a global intellectual has been widely recognized for some time, none of the literature covers the full range of his work. This timely collection reflects on Jameson's entire body of work and demonstrates its potential to shape the emerging field of globalization studies. Experts in literary theory, Slavic studies, film criticism, and Biblical studies explore the significance of Jameson's work for their diverse fields. The contributors treat Jameson's work as a complicated and interconnected whole, and deal with many topics, including his influence in China and Russia, his interests in second- and third-world cinema and literature, and his lifelong passion for science fiction. As On Jameson reveals, integrating these concerns is Jameson's project of producing a critical theory of contemporary global cultures.
Reviews / Votes
"The first question to ask about an edited volume is: why does it exist? The material on Jameson in English is relatively meager considering the extent of his influence, and so any book dedicated to a close engagement with his work is welcome. By a slightly more ambitious commonsense criterion-a volume like this should collect important essays on an important topic in a more or less coherent way-the book succeeds admirably." - symploke"The contributors exude a sense of the younger generation claiming Jameson's work as its own, not defensively or by simple identification with any political line, but as part of an ongoing set of intellectual struggles with the best that has been known and thought about the largest issues of their/our own time." - Bruce Robbins, author of Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Albany, NY
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: College Graduate Student and over
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
640 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7914-6591-2 (9780791465912)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Caren Irr is Associate Professor of English and American Literature at Brandeis University. She is the coeditor (with Jeffrey T. Nealon) of Rethinking the Frankfurt School: Alternative Legacies of Cultural Critique, also published by SUNY Press, and the author of The Suburb of Dissent: Cultural Politics in the U.S. and Canada during the 1930s. Ian Buchanan is Professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at Cardiff University. He is the author of Deleuzism: A Metacommentary and Michel de Certeau: Cultural Theorist.
Content
Introduction
Caren Irr and Ian Buchanan
PART I CENTRAL CONCEPTS
1. Generally Historicizing
Evan Watkins
2. History, Narrative, and Realism: Jameson's Search for a Method
Carolyn Lesjak
3. A Level Playing Field? Metacommentary and Marxism
Roland Boer
4. Narratives of History, Narratives of Time
Sean Homer
PART II REACTIONS AND READINGS AROUND THE WORLD
5. Cultural Revolution, the Discourse of Intellectuals, and Other Folk Tales
Robert Seguin
6. Construction Work: Theory, Migration, and Labor in the Age of Globalization
Michael Rothberg
7. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Postcommunism?: The Cultures of the Former Soviet Bloc Encounter Jameson
Vitaly Chernetsky
PART III TOWARD GLOBALIZATION
8. National Allegory Today: A Return to Jameson
Ian Buchanan
9. Who's Afraid of National Allegory? Jameson, Literary Criticism, Globalization
Imre Szeman
10. The American Grounds of Globalization: Jameson's Return to Hegel
Caren Irr
11. Periodizing Jameson, or, Notes toward a Cultural Logic of Globalization
Philip E.Wegner
Contributors
Index
Caren Irr and Ian Buchanan
PART I CENTRAL CONCEPTS
1. Generally Historicizing
Evan Watkins
2. History, Narrative, and Realism: Jameson's Search for a Method
Carolyn Lesjak
3. A Level Playing Field? Metacommentary and Marxism
Roland Boer
4. Narratives of History, Narratives of Time
Sean Homer
PART II REACTIONS AND READINGS AROUND THE WORLD
5. Cultural Revolution, the Discourse of Intellectuals, and Other Folk Tales
Robert Seguin
6. Construction Work: Theory, Migration, and Labor in the Age of Globalization
Michael Rothberg
7. Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Postcommunism?: The Cultures of the Former Soviet Bloc Encounter Jameson
Vitaly Chernetsky
PART III TOWARD GLOBALIZATION
8. National Allegory Today: A Return to Jameson
Ian Buchanan
9. Who's Afraid of National Allegory? Jameson, Literary Criticism, Globalization
Imre Szeman
10. The American Grounds of Globalization: Jameson's Return to Hegel
Caren Irr
11. Periodizing Jameson, or, Notes toward a Cultural Logic of Globalization
Philip E.Wegner
Contributors
Index