Our reading list for this semester includes a significant sample of Fredric Jameson’s countless reflections on literary form, cultural critique, theoretical practice, finance capitalism, utopian politics, and dialectical criticism. The extension and complexity of Jameson’s work reveal his extraordinary effort to grapple with the historical contradictions of his time. This selection of texts will provide the occasion to explore how Jameson brings together disparate elements such as the structuralist study of aesthetic form and the Marxist analysis of the mode of production, the postmodern embrace of difference and the totality of the capitalist system, the products of pop culture and the politics of utopia, the Western philosophical canon and the postcolonial cultures of the global south, and the commitment to revolutionary politics and a certain indifference toward militancy and polemic, among many others. We will discuss how the dialectical method, which, as a devoted Hegelian, Jameson practiced throughout his life, enabled him to problematize and at the same time reconcile many conceptual oppositions and social antagonisms. In sum, to follow his own slogan, “Always historicize!”, we will try to historicize his own work vis-à-vis our present.
The Center will host three distinguished scholars, each of whom will participate in a session of the reading group, as well as offer a public lecture.
