'Post'-ing Marxism: A totalizing critique of Fredric Jameson and Ernesto Laclau

First, this thesis is a comparison of the critical positions of Fredric Jameson and Ernesto Laclau; specifically, of Jameson's dialectical criticism and Laclau's social logic of hegemony. Second, the evaluation of the relationship between Jameson and Laclau represents an attempt to reframe contemporary debates between the theoretical discourses of Marxism and post-Marxism. The analysis concludes with the argument that it is possible to conceptualize the relationship between these two schools of thought as something other than one of opposition or mutual exclusivity.;To set the stage for the comparison of Jameson and Laclau, a history of the debates between Marxism and poststructuralism (the latter as the intellectual tenor in terms of which most of Laclau's post-Marxist arguments are oriented) is sketched, followed by close, exegetical readings of the critical formulations of Jameson and Laclau, respectively.;Despite several epistemological distinctions between Jameson's Marxism and Laclau's post-Marxism, a common set of theoretical dilemmas and configurations are demonstrated to exist between them, undermining an "either/or" representation of their work.