These are the class notes on the course Philosophy of the Humanities, block 2, the Literature part of the course. All of the readings have been covered (i.e. from week 1-6). The notes have been made during class and all of the questions that were given for the course have been answered.
Engelse Taal en Cultuur, English Language and Culture
Philosophy of the Humanities: Literature
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Week 1: Marxism—Jameson, preface and Chapter 1 (“On
Interpretation”) from The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a
Socially Symbolic Act (1981).
This is the longest reading of the course, which is one of the reasons why it is
in the frst week. Beeing able to read tetts like this at this sort of length is a
skill that you are unlikely to have developed to this point of your study, and
that is another reason for it. My advice is to plough on through, even if there
are parts you do not understand. It is better—and more dialectical—not to
get bogged down on particular passages and to push on to the end. From
that vantage point, when you can see what ground the reading has covered
and everything it has tried to do, you will often be pleasantly surprised at
how much makes sense with hindsight that was confusing and opaque when
you were in the middle of it.
Obviously, we cannot cover everything from this reading in a two-hour class
discussion. So, if you cannot read the whole piece, at least dwell carefully on
the issues and passages that I highlight in the questions below. One thing
that I want you to note is the way that Jameson engages in a conversation
with, and arrangement of, other theories from the perspective of his own
Martism. That is an important aspect of “doing” theory in its own right. If you
read his piece carefully, you can see that he fnds a place for, at least,
structuralism, post-structuralism, feminism, “ethical criticism” (liberal
humanism) and psychoanalysis in his schema, not to mention other versions
of Martism.
1. Look at the opening two sentences. Immediately Jameson is situating
his work in relation to two other major schools of thought. What are
they? And what can we discover about Jameson’s use of them based
on this tiny fragment of his opening?
Historicize: he subscribes to an absolute and trans-historical method
Martism: will be used to demonstrate structural limitations of other
interpretive codes. Dialectical move to cancel and preserve.
Psychoanalytical: ‘the political unconscious’, adopting psychoanalysis, but
also rejecting it. The title accepts part of the idea of psychoanalysis, and
rejects a part of it, too. Repression is a social phenomenon, there is a
social unconscious; political technique rather than a social one
Poststructuralism: against it because poststructuralism does not look at
the historicity and trans-historical claims
Political
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