123421 SE Literary & Cultural Studies Seminar / BA Paper / MA American / North American Lit. Studies (2024W)

Having passed away only this summer at the age of 90, Fredric Jameson’s impact upon literary and cultural studies has been immeasurable. An unflinching Marxist - during a period in which such a label was deeply unfashionable – Jameson engaged, interacted, and debated with the full range of psychoanalytic and poststructuralist theorists of his generation. At the same time, Jameson theorized that the representations of postmodernity were, rather than a triumph against fascism and universalism, more precisely symptoms of capitalism’s effort to fragment social relations and deepen an ambient malaise about our political futures. Jameson helps us, as readers, recognize that, what we thought were theoretical advances in cultural theory, are, in fact, built into the “cultural logic of late capitalism” (the subtitle of his famous book, Postmodernism). Furthermore, Jameson continues his heroic commitment to literary criticism, being one of the few who adheres to close reading – a methodology, seemingly of a bygone era, that has since been replaced by the immediacy and instant gratification of distant reading and postcritique. A careful, forensic reader of form and perspective, Jameson nevertheless knows that we must “always historicize” if we are to properly understand the totality of the present and map out a utopian desire for a better world.
As a group, we will read through the broad range of Jameson’s literary and cultural criticism. This task won’t be easy. Jameson is an important theorist, no doubt, but also one of the most difficult to read. He writes in what we might consider a capacious mode, each sentence staging the full range (the “totality”, to use one of his favorite concepts) and complexity of our social circumstances. His sentences pack in history, dense theorizing, and precision, all in the interest of covering the contradictions of the present. Because of this difficulty, we will have to debate and work through his ideas, together, accepting certain complications, and living within the mind of a true dialectician. This process will be frustrating for all of us; but by the end, we will be more careful readers, being led by someone who models the care and precision of dialectical critique
(I promise, terms like "dialectics," "critique", and "totality" will become clearer in due time).

Read here a collection of essays devoted to Jameson's oeuvre for his 90th birthday: https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/jameson-at-90-a-verso-blog-series

Course Outcome
-Students will be able to read, analyze, and interpret the critical work of Fredric Jameson.
-Students will be able to map Jameson’s theories onto a full range of different traditions (psychoanalysis, Marxism, and poststructuralism)
-Students will be able to utilize Jamesonian theories in their own writings and research projects