Fredric Jameson: A Critical Reader

Fredric Jameson is probably the most important cultural critic writing today, the world's foremost exponent of critical theory and the major theorist of postmodernity. This volume brings together original work from internationally recognised scholars that critically engages with the full range of Jameson's work, including: Sartre; Lukacs; 'Third World' literature; architecture and community politics; the economics of post-modernity; the political unconscious of globalisation; film; dialectics and Brecht. In a series of lively, and at times iconoclastic, readings the authors challenge accepted views of Jameson's work and locate his project in the historical, political and institutional context that shaped it. The volume tracks Jameson's career from the New Left and the rethinking of Marxism in the 1950s and '60s through the rise of postmodernism and post-colonialism to the present, with the emergence of the World Social Forum and a global anti-capitalist movement. Contributors include: Clint Burnham, Maria Elisa Cevasco, Michael Chanan, Christian A. Gregory, Sean Homer, Neil Lazarus, Esther Leslie, John O'Kane, Chris Pawling and Slavoj Zizek.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction Sartrean Origins; S.Homer The American Lukacs? Fredric Jameson and Dialectical Thought; C.Pawling Fredric Jameson on 'Third-World Literature': A Qualified Defence; N.Lazarus Postmodernism is the Theory, Gentrification is the Practice: Jameson, Haraldsson, Architecture and Vancouver; C.Burnham Stranded Economies; C.A.Gregory The Political Unconscious of Globalization: Notes from the Periphery; M.E.Cevasco Jameson as a Theorist of Revolutionary Philately; S.Zizek Talking Film with Fredric Jameson; M.Chanan Postmodern Negative Dialectics; J.O'Kane Modernity as Cultural Politics: Jameson in China; X.Zhang Jameson, Brecht, Lenin and Spectral Possibilities; E.Leslie Dekalog as Decameron; F.Jameson Bibliography Index

About the Author :
DOUGLAS KELLNER is George Kellner Chair in the Philosophy of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA and is author of many books on social theory, politics, history and culture. His recent publications include: Grand Theft 2000: Media Spectacle and the Theft of an Election; The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millenium (co-authored with Steven Best); Media Spectacle and Septermber 11; Terror, War and the Bush Presidency. SEAN HOMER is Senior Lecturer in Media Studes, City College, Thessaloniki, Greece. He is author of Fredric Jameson: Marxism, Hermeneutics, Postmodernism and has published articles on psychoanalysis and critical theory in Radical Philosophy, New Formations, The Letter, PS and Free Associations.