Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture PDF
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Communications and Culture Communications has been defined as the conveying or exchanging of information and ideas. This wide definition is taken as the starting-point for this series of books, which are not bound by conventional academic divisions. The series aims to document or analyse a broad range of cultural forms and ideas. It encompasses works from areas as esoteric as linguistics and as exoteric as television. The language of communication may be the written word or the moving picture, the static icon or the living gesture. These means of communicating can at their best blossom into and form an essential part of the other mysterious concept, culture. There is no sharp or intended split in the series between communication and culture. On one definition, culture refers to the organisation of experience shared by members of a community, a process which includes the standards and values for judging or perceiving, for predicting and acting. In this sense, creative com munication can make for a better and livelier culture. The series reaches towards the widest possible audience. Some of the works concern themselves with activities as general as play and games; others offer a narrower focus, such as the ways of understanding the visual image. It is hoped that some moves in the transformation of the artful and the scientific can be achieved, and that both can begin to be understood by a wider and more comprehending community. Some of these books are written by practitioners - broadcasters, journalists and artists; others come from critics, scholars, scientists and historians. The series has an ancient and laudable, though perhaps unten able, aim - an aim as old as the Greeks and as new as holography; it aspires to help heal the split between cultures, between the practitioners and the thinkers, between science and art, between the academy and life. PAUL WALTON COMMUNICATIONS AND CULTURE Executive Editors STUART HALL, PAUL WALTON Published Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott BOND AND BEYOND: THE POLITICAL CAREER OF A POPULAR HERO Victor Burgin (ed.) THINKING PHOTOGRAPHY Victor Burgin THE END OF ART THEORY: CRITICISM AND POSTMODERNITY lain Chambers URBAN RHYTHMS: POP MUSIC AND POPULAR CULTURE Andrew Davies OTHER THEATRES: THE DEVELOPMENT OF ALTERNATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE IN BRITAIN Erving Goffman GENDER ADVERTISEMENTS Stephen Heath QUESTIONS OF CINEMA Herbert Marcuse THE AESTHETIC DIMENSION: TOWARDS A CRITIQUE OF MARXIST AESTHETICS Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg MARXISM AND THE INTERPRETATION OF CULTURE John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado 'DOCTOR WHo': THE UNFOLDING TEXT Janet Wolff THE SOCIAL PRODUCTION OF ART Forthcoming Jerry Booth and Peter Lewis RADIO: MEANINGS AND AUDIENCES Philip Corrigan CULTURE AND CONTROL James Donald (ed.) CULTURAL ANALYSIS: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CULTURAL THEORY Stuart Hall REPRODUCING IDEOLOGIES Dick Hebdige THE MEANING OF SUBCULTURES Claire Johnston FEMINISM AND CINEMA Simon Jones: BLACK CULTURE, WHITE YOUTH John Tagg THE BURDEN OF REPRESENTATION Peter Widdowson (ed.) CONSUMING FICTIONS? POPULAR LITERATURE TODAY Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture Edited and with an Introduction by CARY NELSON and LAWRENCE GROSSBERG M MACMILLAN EDUCATION © Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 1988 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 Act 1956 (as amended), or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WClE 7AE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Marxism and the interpretation of culture. __( communications and culture). l. Communism and culture I. Nelson, Cary II. Grossberg, Lawrence III. Series 306'.01 HX523 ISBN 978-0-333-46276-8 ISBN 978-1-349-19059-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19059-1 Series Standing Order If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they are published, you can make use of our standing order facility. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address and the name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your standing order. (If you live outside the United Kingdom we may not have the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your order to the publisher concerned.) Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 2XS, England. Contents Preface, ix Lawrence Grossberg and Cary Nelson Introduction: The Territory of Marxism, 1 Rethinking the Crisis in Marxism Cornel West Marxist Theory and the Specificity of Afro-American Oppression, 17 Discussion, 30 Stuart Hall The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism among the Theorists, 35 Discussion, 58 Henri Lefebvre Toward a Leftist Cultural Politics: Remarks Occasioned by the Centenary of Marx's Death, 75 Chantal Mouffe Hegemony and New Political Subjects: Toward a New Concept of Democracy, 89 Discussion, 102 Catharine A. MacKinnon Desire and Power: A Feminist Perspective, 105 Discussion, 117 Paul Patton Marxism and Beyond: Strategies of Reterritorialization, 123 Discussion, 137 A. Belden Fields In Defense of Political Economy and Systemic Analysis: A Critique of Prevailing Theoretical Approaches to the New Social Movements, 141 II Toward a Contemporary Marxism Etienne Balibar The Vacillation of Ideology, 159 Oskar Negt What Is a Revival of Marxism and Why Do We Need One Today?: Centennial Lecture Commemorating the Death of Karl Marx, 211 Gajo Petrovic Philosophy and Revolution: Twenty Sheaves of Questions, 235 v Ernesto Laclau Metaphor and Social Antagonisms, 249 Christine Delphy Patriarchy, Domestic Mode of Production, Gender, and Class, 259 Discussion, 268 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Can the Subaltern Speak?, 271 Ill The Politics of Modernity and Postmodernity Perry Anderson Modernity and Revolution, 317 Discussion, 334 Franco Moretti The Spell of Indecision, 339 Discussion, 345 Fredric Jameson Cognitive Mapping, 347 Discussion, 358 Andrew Ross The New Sentence and the Commodity Form: Recent American Writing, 361 Fred Pfeil Postmodernism as a "Structure of Feeling," 381 Eugene Holland Schizoanalysis: The Postmodern Contextualization of Psychoanalysis, 405 IV Culture, Domination, and Resistance Julia Lesage Women's Rage, 419 Michele Mattelart Can Industrial Culture Be a Culture of Difference?: A Reflection on France's Confrontation with the U.S. Model of Serialized Cultural Production, 429 Fernando Reyes Matta The "New Song" and Its Confrontation in Latin America, 447 Simon Frith Art Ideology and Pop Practice, 461 Michael Ryan The Politics of Film: Discourse, Psychoanalysis, Ideology, 477 vi Jack L. Amariglio, Stephen A. Resnick, and Richard D. Wolff Class, Power, and Culture, 487 Jean Franco Beyond Ethnocentrism: Gender, Power, and the Third-World Intelligentsia, 503 V Science, Technology, Politics, and Ethics Stanley Aronowitz The Production of Scientific Knowledge: Science, Ideology, and Marxism, 519 Discussion, 538 Sue Golding The Concept of the Philosophy of Praxis in the Ouaderni of Antonio Gramsci, 543 Richard Schacht Marxism, Normative Theory, and Alienation, 565 Armand Mattelart Communications in Socialist France: The Difficulty of Matching Technology with Democracy, 581 lain Chambers Contamination, Coincidence, and Collusion: Pop Music, Urban Culture, and the Avant-Garde, 607 Discussion, 612 VI The Politics of Theory and Interpretation Terry Eagleton The Critic as Clown, 619 Michel P~cheux Discourse: Structure or Event?, 633 Hugo Achugar The Book of Poems as a Social Act: Notes toward an Interpretation of Contemporary Hispanic American Poetry, 651 Darko Suvin Can People Be (Re)Presented in Fiction?: Toward a Theory of Narrative Agents and a Materialist Critique beyond Technology or Reductionism, 663 vii Michele Barrett The Place of Aesthetics in Marxist Criticism, 697 Fengzhen Wang Marxist Literary Criticism in China, 715 Notes on Contributors, 723 Index, 733 viii Preface Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture grew out of a series of events organized by the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the summer of 1983: a group of courses taught by several of the contributors (An derson, Fields, Grossberg, Hall, Jameson, Lesage, Petrovic, Schacht, Spi vak) were attended by several hundred faculty members and students; the Marxist Literary Group held its annual meeting; and the summer cul minated in a large international conference. For many of those who at tended the conference, therefore, it was very much a culmination and working out of discussions and disputes that had not only a long prior history but also a very specific and extended interactive history that sum mer. During the following two years most of the papers were very heavily revised, in part as a result of the challenge of the whole summer's events. Several additional essays were solicited from people who were invited but could not attend the conference, and a few people who attended the conference but did not present papers submitted essays on their own. We have retained from the conference itself only those commentaries and discussion sessions that suggest substantive critiques of a position, develop significantly the central issues of a par ticular essay, or provide interesting contrasts among positions. We have included the names of people asking questions or offering comments whenever they were willing to be identified; and we have cooperated with those who preferred to remain anonymous. We have also tried to follow people's wishes about such matters as whether or not to capitalize "Marxism." Finally, we should note that the editors assisted with the translation of the essays by Achugar, Balibar, Lefebvre, Mouffe, Negt, and Wang. Neither the conference nor the book would have been possible without the help of a great many people. For advice, continuing assistance, and the benefit of their experience we give special thanks to Daniel Alpert, Nina Baym, David Bright, Theodore Brown, David Colley, Judith Edelstein, William Fierke, Joel Hersig, Roger Martin, Mark Netter, Gary North, William Plater, William Prokasy, Edward Sullivan, Patricia Wenzel, Richard Wentworth, and Linda Wilson. Jefferson Hendricks helped coordinate the conference, and many people worked long hours during it: Roberta Astroff, Steve Ater, Van Cagle, Meredith Cargill, Sri ankle Chang, K. C. Chen, Karen Cole, Jon Crane, John Duvall, Michael Greer, William May, Nelly Mitchell, Lisa Odell, Steve Olsen, David Riefman, Mary Robinson, Phillip Sellers, and Tim Vere. James Kavanaugh provided helpful advice on the Balibar translation. Karen Ford, Michael Greer, Mar sha Bryant, Teresa Magnum, Gail Rost, and Anne Balsamo assisted us in assembling the final manuscript. The book was copyedited by Theresa L. Sears. Financial support within the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign came from the School of Humanities, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of Communications, the Research Board, the George A. Miller Endowment Fund, International Programs and Ser vices, the Office for Women's Resources and Services, the School of Social Sciences, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the University Library, the Institute of Communications Research, theRe- ix
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