Fredric Jameson Also by Sean Homer FREDRIC JAMESON: Marxism, Hermeneutics, Postmodernism Also by Douglas Kellner CRITICAL THEORY, MARXISM AND MODERNITY JEAN BAUDRILLARD: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond POSTMODERN THEORY: Critical Interrogations (with Steven Best) Fredric Jameson: A Critical Reader Edited by Sean Homer Senior Lecturer in Media Studies City College, Thessaloniki, Greece and Douglas Kellner Chair in the Philosophy of Education University of California, Los Angeles, USA Selection and editorial matter © Sean Homer and Douglas Kellner 2004 Chapter 1 © Sean Homer 2004 Remaining chapters © Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 2004 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-333-98209-9 ISBN 978-0-230-52352-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-0-230-52352-4 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fredric Jameson : a critical reader / edited by Douglas Kellner and Sean Homer. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN978- 0–333–98208–8 (cloth) — ISBN 978-0–333–98209–6 (pbk.) 1. Jameson, Fredric—Criticism and interpretation. I. Kellner, Douglas, 1943– II. Homer, Sean. PN75.J36F74 2004 801′.95′092—dc22 2003062096 10987654321 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 Contents List of Plates vii Acknowledgements viii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction xii Sean Homer and Douglas Kellner 1Sartrean Origins 1 Sean Homer 2 The American Lukács? Fredric Jameson and Dialectical Thought 22 Christopher Pawling 3 Fredric Jameson on ‘Third-World Literature’: A Qualified Defence 42 Neil Lazarus 4 Postmodernism is the Theory, Gentrification is the Practice: Jameson, Haraldsson, Architecture, and Vancouver 62 Clint Burnham 5Stranded Economies 77 Christian A. Gregory 6 The Political Unconscious of Globalization: Notes from the Periphery 94 Maria Elisa Cevasco 7 Jameson as a Theorist of Revolutionary Philately 112 Slavoj Zizek 8 Talking Film with Fredric Jameson: A Conversation with Michael Chanan 125 Michael Chanan 9 Postmodern Negative Dialectics 142 John O’Kane 10 Modernity as Cultural Politics: Jameson and China 169 Xudong Zhang v vi Contents 11 Jameson, Brecht, Lenin and Spectral Possibilities 195 Esther Leslie 12 Dekalog as Decameron 210 Fredric Jameson Bibliography 223 Index 237 List of Plates 1 Arni Haraldsson, Downtown East, Downtown Eastside Architecture, Vancouver, BC (2000–03). c-print, 23" × 37" framed 63 2 Arni Haraldsson, Downtown East and China Town, Downtown Eastside Architecture, Vancouver, BC (2000–03). Detail from Diptych, c-print, 52.5" × 34" framed 66 3 Arni Haraldsson, Regal Place Hotel (1909), 144–46 West Hastings Street; Gardiner & Mercer, architects. Downtown Eastside Architecture, Vancouver, BC (2000–03). c-print 28" × 32" framed 70 4 Arni Haraldsson, Dominion Building (1908–10), 207 West Hastings Street; J. S. Heyler & Son, architects; and Flack Block (1899), West Hastings Street; William Blackmore, architect. c-print 28" × 32" framed. Downtown Eastside Architecture, Vancouver, BC (2000–03) 73 vii Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Anthony Elliott for his support and encour- agement in bringing this book to publication. We also wish to thank Jennifer Nelson and Briar Towers at Palgrave Macmillan for their assistance and patience. All images are reproduced courtesy of the artist and Catriona Jefferies Gallery. Grateful acknowledgement is made to: Duke University Press to reproduce copyright material from Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Verso, 1991 (Copyright © 1991 by Duke University Press); Macmillan Publishing Limited and Suhrkamp Verlag for permission to reproduce Bertolt Brecht ‘Everything Changes’, translated by John Willett from John Willett and Ralph Mannheim (eds) Bertolt Brecht, Poems 1913–1956, Methuen Publishing Ltd, 1987 (Copyright © 1976 Methuen London Ltd). Malcolm Lowry’s ‘Christ Walks in the Infernal District Too’ is reprinted with permission by the Publisher from The Collected Poems of Malcolm Lowry by Kathleen Dorothy Scherf © University of British Columbia Press 1992; all rights reserved by the Publisher. Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity. viii Notes on Contributors Clint Burnham teaches at the University of British Columbia and Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Canada. He is author of The Jamesonian Unconscious: The Aesthetics of Marxist Theory, The Life and Work of Steve Mcaffery and Be Labour Reading. He is currently working on a book about Vancouver photo-conceptualism. Maria Elisa Cevasco is Professor of English and American Literatures at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She has recently co-edited a book on the World Social Forum, O Espirito de Porto Alegre and is author of Dez Lições de Estudos Culturais. She is the translator of Jameson’s books into Portuguese and has published widely in Brazilian and English journals including Crop, Pretexts and Textual Practice. Michael Chanan is a writer, documentary film maker and Professor of Cul- tural Studies at the University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He is author of books on the beginnings of cinema, the social history of music, and the history of recording. A new edition of his study of Cuban cinema, The Cuban Image, was published in 2003. Christian A. Gregory teaches at Auburn University, US. He previously pub- lished in Film Criticism and Mediations. Sean Homer is Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, 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. He is on the editorial board of Psychotherapy and Politics International. Fredric Jameson is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University, where he is Director of the Graduate Program in Literature and the Center for Critical Theory. He is the author of many books including the prize-wining Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism and more recently The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern, 1983–1998; Brecht and Method and A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present. Douglas Kellner is George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA and is author of many books on social theory, politics, history, and ix x Notes on Contributors culture including: Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film (co-authored with Michael Ryan); Critical Theory, Marxism, and Modernity; Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond; Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (with Steven Best); Television and the Crisis of Democracy, The Persian Gulf TV War; Media Culture; and The Post- modern Turn (with Steven Best). He has recently published a book on the 2000 US presidential election, Grand Theft 2000: Media Spectacle and the Theft of an Election; and The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (co-authored with Steve Best). He has just published two books on Media Spectacle and on September 11, Terror War and the Bush Presidency. Neil Lazarus is Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, UK. His publications include: Resistance in Postcolonial African Fiction; Nationalism and Cultural Practice in the Postcolonial World; and (co-edited with Crystal Bartolovich) Marxism, Modernity and Postcolonial Studies. Esther Leslie is a lecturer in English and Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. She has written extensively on aesthetics and the Frankfurt School and is author of Walter Benjamin: Overpowering Conformism and Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, the Avant-garde and Critical Theory. She is on the editorial board of the journals Historical Materialism, Revolutionary History, and Radical Philosophy. John O’Kane teaches theory, media and cultural studies at USC. His recent publications include articles on capital and socio-economic justice in Rethinking Marxism; welfare and Empire in Emergences; Seattle and