On Jameson's New Marxism Under Postmodern Context

The main purpose of this dissertation is to systemize Jameson's new Marxism in hisliterary and cultural criticism and make a critical analysis of his theory. The dissertation startswith an introduction of the postmodern Marxist critical atmosphere and the leading positionJameson holds in the contemporary literary and cultural critical field. Then it goes on to themain body to systemize Jameson's literary and cultural critical theory and make an analysisof it with a view to its development of Marxism and its deviation from the latter, and endswith comments on Jameson's significance with his theory.The dissertation consists of five parts. The first part is introduction, introducing the maingroups in western cultural criticism under postmodern context, including groups or figures ofwestern Marxist criticism usually called new leftists, and post-structuralism, together withJameson's relation with them in the meantime. Thereby Jameson's theoretical relation withthe new lefts will be explicated, and Jameson's development of Marxism, his originality fromthe other new lefts and his post-structuralist complex will also be clarified.Chapter One and Two are the main body of the dissertation, which seeks to systemizeJameson's theory of political interpretation of literary and cultural texts, and analyze theplausibility of his theory. Chapter one is divided by three. The first part implements thesystemization and analysis of Jameson's theory of political interpretation of literary texts. Thesystemization and analysis go hand in hand with the elucidation of some key concepts such ashistory, allegory, ideology, which are the fundamental components of Jameson'sinterpretation model and the very source of the problematics of his theory. The second partgoes on to explore and analyze the above-mentioned problematic concepts of his theory. It isthese concepts that determine the metaphysical nature and deviation of Jameson's theoryfrom Marxism. The third part outlines Jameson's political interpretation of literary works andits deviations. Chapter two is divided by three too. The first part clarifies Jameson's analysisof postmodern phenomena and his conclusion—the cultural logic of late capitalism, or thecommodification of culture and acculturation of commodity. Several key terms such as spatialturn, cognitive mapping and Utopia will also be elaborated here. In the second part hisanalysis of the market and group pluralism will be critically examined, so as to expose thedefects of cultural interpretation. The third part is a critical model of Jameson's politicalinterpretation with his practice of postmodern cultural criticism included.Chapter Three makes comments on the significance of Jameson's theory in culture andhistory.The last part is the conclusion: Jameson's theory is generally a semi-nominal systemwhich conforms to the zeitgeist of the postmodern period. On the one hand he carries on theMarxist cultural critical tradition of social criticism, and revives some key Marxist concepts;on the other he transforms the key concepts into a metaphysical model to fit in the theoreticalatmosphere of postmodernism.