Questions
for Fourth responses (Due by 8 am June 29):
In one to five
short essays of 250-1,250 words, respond to from one to five of the
following questions (you can write any combination of essays totalling
1,250 words--five essays of 250 words each, three essays of approximately
428 words each, etc.)
(1) In his landmark
essay "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," and again
in his lecture "What's Left of Theory?" Fredric Jameson
engages the argument that "all of the supposedly new characteristics
of postmodernity and postmodernism can be seen in previous historical
epochs and cultural movements--especially modernity and high modernism.
His answer to this objection is, I think, a nuanced, "not exactly."
Summarize and discuss some of Jameson's comments about the differences
between modernity/modernism and postmodernity/postmodernism, focusing
on the general terms of the argument, or, if you prefer, on one or
more of the specific examples he uses.
(2) In "The
Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism" Jameson engages many of the
same issues that concerned the Frankfurt School critics and theorists--of
the relationships among art, popular culture, economic production
and consumption, ideology and political hegemony. Identify one or
more of these areas of overlapping concern and discuss the continuities
and ruptures with the Frankfurt School tradition that can be seen
in Jameson's essay.
(3) In the excerpt
from A Brief History of Neoliberalism David Harvey describes
in some detail the political and economic events that led to the emergence
of a neoliberal hegemony in Britain during the 1980s. He provides
specific historical context for some of the theoretical and critical
movements that we have encountered in previous weeks--for example,
he frames the whole discussion in Gramscian terms as "the establishing
of consent" and describes the conditions in which the Birmingham
School cultural theorists came to prominence. Identify one or more
coordinates between Harvey's summary of the history of the period
and developments in cultural theory that we have studied, and discuss
the connections.
(4) In his account
of "neo-marxist" critiques of postmodernity, Philip Smith
discusses Jameson, Harvey, and Scott Lash (pp. 222-226). He suggests
that Lash, unlike Harvey and Jameson, suggests that postmodernism
has a critical and emancipatory potential. Smith wrote this chapter
with Jameson's book Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Postmodernism
and Harvey's book The Condition of Postmodernity in Mind,
before the publication of Harvey's recent books such as A Brief
History of Neoliberalism or Jameson's reflection on postmodernism/
postmodernity in his lecture "What's Left of Theory." Do
you think his criticism is accurate? Can it be sustained in view of
Jameson's and Harvey's developing thought?
(5) Postmodernism,
postmodernity, consumerism and globalization are issues embedded in
the study of cultural theory that may have relevance in current U.
S. political debates, from the terrorism threat and the Iraq war to
the political conflicts over illegal immigration and labor outsourcing.
offer numerous points of entry and leverage for a critical analysis
of these issues. Identify one of these current issues or another one
that comes to mind and analyse it in the context of one of the theoretical
frameworks discussed in Smith's chapter 13 and/or developed in the
other readings.
(6) Raise and
discuss any questions and/or reactions you have in response to these
readings after you have read the texts.
