Jameson on Jameson : conversations on cultural Marxism /

Jameson, the author of The Political Unconscious (1981) and other influential works, is well known for the amazing variety of subjects he discusses. The many readers who find his style hard to grasp will find considerable help in this collection of ten interviews with him that date from the 1980s to the 1990s. The book makes his key concepts accessible: Jameson is a classical Marxist who believes that literature and the other arts reflect the mode of production. In our time, this is capitalism. Accordingly, it is not enough for critics to analyze a writer's personal unconscious, though Jameson is quick to embrace Freudian insights. The critic needs also to see the political unconscious, i.e., the implicit assumptions about the economy, society, and power, at play in a particular work. At the present stage of capitalism, postmodernism has replaced the modernist classics that once formed the literary and artistic canon; and much of Jameson's criticism is devoted to postmodernist works. He by no means confines himself to the European and American scene but displays a keen interest in Asia and Latin America as well. Recommended for literary and cultural criticism collections.-David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.