Critiques of Postmodernism : A Marxist Perspective

Summary

The video script offers an in-depth exploration of postmodernism from a Marxist perspective, focusing on the critiques presented by Frederic Jameson and Terry Eagleton. It discusses how postmodernism is seen as a cultural expression of late capitalism, characterized by a breakdown of distinctions between high and mass culture, a fascination with 'schlock' and 'kitsch,' and a move towards pastiche and parody. Jameson argues that this leads to a loss of historical context and originality in art, making it difficult for art to serve as a medium for political or cultural critique. The lecture also touches on the concept of the 'political unconscious' in narratives and how postmodern narratives may act as tools for managing and repressing social anxieties, rather than as catalysts for change. The summary emphasizes the depthlessness of postmodern art, the role of photography, and the waning effect in postmodern culture as key concerns for Marxist critics.

Takeaways

• 📚 The lecture discusses critiques of Postmodernism from a Marxist perspective, focusing on the incompatibility of postmodern concepts with Marxist ideology.
• 🎨 It highlights the works of Frederic Jameson and Terry Eagleton, who critiqued postmodernism's departure from Marxist ideas and its cultural manifestations.
• 👨‍🏫 Jameson, a leading figure in literary theory and notable Marxist critic, is known for exploring the socio-economic and cultural changes raised by postmodernism.
• 🏛️ Postmodernism is characterized by the blurring of boundaries between high culture and mass culture, which is a point of contention for Marxist critics.
• 🔍 Jameson criticizes the postmodern fascination with 'schlock' and 'kitsch,' seeing them as symptoms of cultural degradation and commercialization.
• 🎭 The lecture touches on the concept of 'kitschification' of cultures as a postmodern condition, where art is reduced to easily marketable forms.
• 🖼️ Jameson contrasts the depth and meaning in Van Gogh's 'A Pair of Shoes' with the surface-level appearance of Warhol's 'Diamond Dust Shoes,' illustrating the loss of depth in postmodern art.
• 🔄 Postmodernism is criticized for promoting pastiche and parody, with a lack of originality and a culture of imitation, which Marxists find problematic.
• 🌐 The critique extends to the impact of mass culture in postmodern society, where commercial culture is not just present but is integrated into art, leading to a loss of radical distinction.
• 📉 Jameson argues that postmodern art reflects the cultural logic of late capitalism, suggesting that it is a super structural expression of American economic domination.
• 🚫 The lecture concludes by emphasizing the difficulty of political or critical art in the postmodern era, as postmodernism tends to assimilate the radical into the commonplace and reduces art to commodities.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the NPTEL course session on Postmodernism and Literature?

The main focus of the session is to critique postmodernism from a Marxist perspective, discussing the various criticisms leveled against postmodernism, particularly by Marxist theorists.

What are the two seminal works that Jameson and Eagleton critique from a Marxist viewpoint?

Jameson and Eagleton critique the works of Baudrillard and Lyotard, who introduced concepts like hyperreality, simulation, and the incredulity toward metanarratives.

What is Frederic Jameson's perspective on postmodernism in relation to capitalism?

Jameson views postmodernism as an offshoot of late capitalism, suggesting that it is not just a historical period but a dominant age that reflects the context of late capitalist society.

How does Jameson describe the relationship between postmodernism and the breakdown of high culture and mass culture?

Jameson criticizes postmodernism for erasing the frontier between high culture and mass culture, which he sees as a political tendency that shows a dominant shift towards capitalism.

What is the meaning of 'kitsch' in the context of postmodern culture as discussed by Jameson?

In the context of postmodern culture, 'kitsch' refers to art forms that are considered in poor taste but appreciated in a particular context, often in an ironic way, and are reduced into easily marketable forms.

What is the concept of 'schlock' and how does it relate to postmodern culture?

'Schlock' refers to cheap, inferior goods that have become extremely popular in the postmodern digitized culture, reflecting the commercialization and globalization of art.

What is the main criticism against postmodern art according to Jameson?

Jameson criticizes postmodern art for its characteristic mode of pastiche and blank parody, suggesting that it lacks originality and depth, and is more about imitation than creating something new.

How does Jameson argue that postmodernism leads to the disappearance of the subject and the loss of history?

Jameson argues that the breakdown of distinctions in postmodernism, along with its fascination with 'schlock' and 'kitsch', leads to the disappearance of the subject and the loss of history, which in turn deprives art of originality.

What is the significance of the comparison between Vincent Van Gogh's 'A Pair of Shoes' and Andy Warhol's 'Diamond Dust Shoes' in Jameson's critique?

The comparison highlights the difference between high modernist art and postmodernist art, with Van Gogh's work offering depth and a connection to peasant life, while Warhol's work represents the depthlessness and commodification of postmodern culture.

What are the three major features of postmodernism that Jameson criticizes in his work?

The three major features that Jameson criticizes are the emergence of a new kind of depthlessness, the role of photography and the photographic negative replacing art, and the waning of affect in postmodern culture.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Postmodernism Critiques

The session initiates a discussion on the criticisms of postmodernism from a Marxist perspective. It outlines the various definitions and conceptual frameworks used to understand postmodernism in literature and culture. The lecturer emphasizes the importance of recognizing criticisms against postmodernism, particularly from Marxist and feminist standpoints. The focus is on Frederic Jameson and Terry Eagleton's critiques of postmodernism and their seminal works published in the 1980s, which challenge postmodern concepts and capitalism's role within it.

05:02

🏭 Postmodernism as a Critique of Capitalism

This paragraph delves into the connection between postmodernism and capitalism, highlighting postmodernism as a phenomenon of advanced capitalist societies characterized by computerization and mass media culture. Jameson's critique views postmodernism as an offshoot of late capitalism, marked by a breakdown in the distinction between high and mass culture. He criticizes postmodern culture's fascination with 'schlock' and 'kitsch,' terms referring to cheap, inferior goods and art forms of poor taste that have become popular in the digitized culture of the 20th century.

10:08

🎭 The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

The speaker discusses Jameson's views on the cultural logic of late capitalism, where postmodernism is not just a period but a dominant age significantly influenced by late capitalist society. Jameson's critique of postmodern culture includes its characteristic mode of pastiche and blank parody, which he sees as indicative of a loss of originality and history in art. This leads to a discussion on the disappearance of the subject and the consequences of a loss of historicity, which Marxists find incompatible with their theories.

15:14

🔍 Marxist Critique of Postmodernism

The paragraph explores the Marxist criticism of postmodernism, emphasizing the Marxist approach to culture as a reflection of social, economic, and political conditions. It explains how Marxist criticism views cultural texts as products of power relations and political-economic shifts in society. The speaker also introduces Jameson's book 'The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act,' discussing narratives as central to understanding reality and their connection to material realities outside the text.

20:19

🌐 Dialectical Criticism and Narratives

This section examines dialectical criticism, which situates cultural objects within historical conditions and social-political structures. It discusses the concept of narratives as techniques of containment for historical contradictions and the idea that narratives can be political objects used for repression. The speaker also touches on the notion of a 'political unconscious' in literary and cultural texts, where social and political anxieties are transformed into various cultural productions.

25:24

🖌️ Art and Commodification in Postmodernism

The speaker critiques postmodernism's propensity towards domination and the consequences of mass culture, such as the assimilation of the radical into the commonplace and the conversion of all art forms into commodities. Jameson's discussion of depthlessness in mass culture is highlighted, using the comparison between Vincent Van Gogh's 'A Pair of Shoes' and Andy Warhol's 'Diamond Dust Shoes' to illustrate the difference between high modernist art and postmodernist art, and the latter's lack of depth and meaning.

30:27

🎨 Postmodernism and the Crisis of Originality

The final paragraph focuses on Jameson's critique of postmodernism's culture of pastiche, where imitation and parody replace originality, and the absence of original artists or objects. It discusses the phenomenon of remix in contemporary culture, where the original work can become obscured, and the copy or remix takes its place. The speaker also addresses three features of postmodernism that Jameson criticizes: the emergence of depthlessness, the role of photography, and the waning effect in postmodern culture.

Keywords

💡Postmodernism

Postmodernism is a philosophical movement characterized by skepticism, relativism, and a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies. In the context of the video, postmodernism is critiqued from a Marxist perspective as being incompatible with the principles of Marxism, particularly due to its perceived lack of grounding in historical and material conditions. The video discusses how postmodernism has been defined and its impact on literature and culture.

💡Marxist Perspective

The Marxist perspective is rooted in the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, emphasizing the role of economic and social structures in shaping society. In the video, this perspective is used to critique postmodernism, arguing that postmodern ideas are incompatible with Marxist ideology, which focuses on class struggle, historical materialism, and the critique of capitalism.

💡Critique

Critique, in this context, refers to the analysis and judgment of ideas, often with the aim of pointing out weaknesses or flaws. The video discusses various forms of criticisms against postmodernism, particularly from a Marxist viewpoint, highlighting the perceived shortcomings of postmodern concepts in relation to social, economic, and political realities.

💡Postmodern Culture

Postmodern culture is characterized by a blending of high and low art, a fascination with pastiche, and a general skepticism towards grand narratives. The video critiques postmodern culture for erasing boundaries between high and mass culture, leading to a loss of originality and depth in art, as exemplified by the works of Andy Warhol.

💡Late Capitalism

Late capitalism, as discussed in the video, refers to a stage of capitalism marked by multinational corporations, speculative finance, and electronic communication. Frederic Jameson, a key figure in the video, argues that postmodernism is not just a cultural phenomenon but also a reflection of the underlying economic system of late capitalism.

💡Hyperreality

Hyperreality is a concept introduced by Jean Baudrillard, which suggests that in postmodern societies, simulations and representations have come to dominate our understanding of reality. The video mentions Baudrillard's idea of hyperreality to illustrate the postmodern condition where the distinction between the real and the artificial is blurred.

💡Schlock and Kitsch

Schlock refers to cheap, inferior goods, while kitsch denotes art forms considered in poor taste but appreciated in a particular context. The video critiques the postmodern fascination with schlock and kitsch as indicative of a culture that commercializes art and reduces it to marketable goods, thus stripping it of its political and cultural significance.

💡Pastiche

Pastiche is an imitation or parody that repeats former styles without any originality or uniqueness. The video discusses pastiche as a characteristic mode of postmodern art, suggesting that it represents a lack of original ideas and a departure from the depth and meaning found in modernist art.

💡Depthlessness

Depthlessness, as used in the video, refers to the lack of depth and meaning in postmodern art and culture. Jameson argues that postmodern works, unlike modernist ones, do not offer a deeper understanding or critique of society but are instead superficial and lacking in substance.

💡Cultural Logic

Cultural logic, in the context of Jameson's work mentioned in the video, refers to the underlying principles or ideologies that shape a culture's artistic and literary expressions. Jameson's book title 'Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism' suggests that postmodernism is not just a cultural trend but a logical outcome of the economic system of late capitalism.

Highlights

The session discusses critiques of Postmodernism from a Marxist perspective, focusing on the incompatibility of postmodern ideas with Marxism.

Marxist critics like Frederic Jameson and Terry Eagleton challenge postmodern concepts introduced by Baudrillard and Lyotard.

Jameson's work extends the critique of postmodernism to a broader analysis of late capitalism's cultural logic.

Postmodernism is characterized by the blurring of boundaries between high culture and mass culture.

The fascination with 'schlock' and 'kitsch' in postmodern culture is seen as a form of cultural degradation by Marxist critics.

Jameson argues that postmodern art leads to the disappearance of the subject, loss of history, and a lack of originality.

Marxist criticism views culture as a product of social, economic, and political conditions, in contrast to postmodernism's ahistoricity.

The Political Unconscious by Jameson offers a commentary on narratives as socially symbolic acts within a materialist framework.

Dialectical criticism, as advocated by Jameson, requires situating cultural objects within historical conditions and social structures.

Jameson posits that narratives serve as tools of containment for social and political anxieties, preventing revolution.

Postmodernism is seen as an expression of multinational capitalism, with its own cultural logic according to Jameson.

Jameson critiques the depthlessness of postmodern art, such as Warhol's 'Diamond Dust Shoes', in contrast to Van Gogh's 'A Pair of Shoes'.

The concept of pastiche in postmodernism, involving imitation and parody, is identified as lacking originality and creativity.

Jameson discusses the political implications of postmodern art, questioning its capacity for critical or political expression.

The session emphasizes the importance of engaging with diverse perspectives to understand postmodernism in various contexts.

The lecture concludes by encouraging further exploration of Marxist criticisms of postmodernism to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.

Transcripts

Hello, everyone, I am happy to welcome you  to yet another session of the NPTEL course  

Postmodernism and Literature. Today's discussion  is titled critiques of Postmodernism: a Marxist  

perspective. As the title implies, this is a  discussion about the varied forms of criticisms  

which have been leveled against the idea of  postmodernism. So, far we have been looking  

at the number of ways in which postmodernism  have been defined and critical frameworks, 

the conceptual frameworks which we shall be  using to access postmodernism from a literary  

and cultural point of view and we have also  looked at major terminologies, major theories,  

major interventions in the postmodern age.  Particularly the kind of interventions which would  

help us to read various texts and contexts, in  the contemporary literary and cultural scenario.  

In that context it is also very important  to understand; that there are a number of  

charges a number of criticisms, which are being  leveled against the idea of postmodernism. This  

has been done from range of vantage points,  from a range of paradigms, from a range of  

theoretical standpoint ; are the most important  ones among these could be identified from within  

the frameworks of a marxism as well as feminism. In today's session we shall be particularly  

focusing on the marxist perspective and how  the marxists have found the postmodern idea  

is a very incompatible and how they have been  rejecting a number of postmodern concepts. So,  

at the outset of this discussion we begin talking  about two works which were predominantly from the  

Anglo American tradition and they also responded  to the idea of postmodernism particularly;  

the ideas put forward by Baudrillard and Lyotard.  From previous discussions of the earlier weeks,  

we are also familiar that Baudrillard spoke about  hyper reality, about the idea of simulation,  

simulacra, and Lyotard sought to define  postmodernism as in credibility toward  

meta narratives. And both of these works and the  concepts, and the frameworks that they introduced,  

have been seminal to the understanding of a  post structuralism; as well as postmodernism,  

and we have also notably looked at a  number of things in the contemporary,  

which also reflect the ideas that they spoke  about which also could be seen as an extension  

of the theories that they had put forward. So, these two works particularly by Frederic  

Jameson and Terry Eagleton and from the marxist  perspective, they challenged the ideas, they  

critique the ideas put forward by Baudrillard and  by Lyotard, and they also extended the discussion  

to a larger critique of postmodernism in general,  and two articles by Jameson and by Terry Eagleton  

appeared in 1984 and 1985 respectively,  in this noted marxist join, the New left  

Review. Jameson article was further extended and  published as a book length work in 1991 title:  

Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late  Capitalism .Terry Eagleton essay : Capitalism,  

Modernism and Postmodernism could be read  as a closer corollary to Jameson’s work. 

In today's session we begin looking at some of  the things that Jameson puts forward and also,  

how postmodernism could be seen as a departure  from a number of marxist ideas. And also how  

marxist find it compulsive to reject the ideals  of postmodernism, because they find a number of  

concepts related to the same as being incompatible  to the ideas, to the ideology of marxism. 

Frederic Jameson was born in 1934, could be seen  as one of the leading figures of literary theory  

and also a notable marxist critic. He consistently  explored questions of social economic and cultural  

change raised by postmodernism and also he  focused on the changing nature of capitalism  

and the place of marxism within it. So, in that sense his work could be  

seen as a critiquing not just postmodernism, but  postmodernism as an offshoot of capitalism. In  

particularly late capitalism as his works  title also implies, according to Jameson  

postmodernism is not one among the many periods,  it is not one among the many ages in history,  

but on the contrary it is a very dominant age and  there is a particular reason for Jameson to say,  

that the postmodern age is also a dominant  age it is also because it draws a much,  

it is significance; is drawn much from the  context of the late capitalist society. 

If we recall some of the discussions that, we had  earlier in context of the definitions related to  

postmodernism, postmodernism and postmodernity  has always been associated with highly developed  

capitalist societies. It is a phenomena which  is seen in computerized societies and also in  

advanced societies, it is something which is  related to societies which have been part of  

the mass media culture in the 20th century. It  is also related to a kind of disillusionment,  

a kind of degradation, and a move away from  the traditional modernist notions which have  

been particularly exemplified in advanced,  modernized, technologized, computerized  

advanced capitalist societies.So, in that  sense Jameson's critique also needs to be seen  

as a critique of capitalism I reiterate he use  postmodernism as an offshoot of late capitalism. 

Before, we precede into the details of the  various arguments that James makes in his  

work Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of late  Capitalism let us tried a brief outline of the  

critiques of postmodern culture that he offers at  the outset. Postmodernism and Postmodernity, as we  

know, it effaced the frontier between high culture  and mass culture. And this also something that  

distinctively demarcates postmodernism from the  modernist trends. A number of critiques which  

is Jameson, were very unsettled by this sort of a  breakdown of the frontier, because it also marked  

a particular kind of political tendency which  showed a dominant shift towards capitalism. 

And among the other critiques of postmodern  culture, Jameson particularly points out  

the postmodern fascination with ‘schlock' and  ‘kitsch'. So, it is important to understand;  

what these terms are, ‘schlock' refers to cheap  inferior goods which have also become extremely  

popular in the postmodern digitized 20th century  culture and, ‘kitsch' refers to certain kinds of  

art forms which are originate which could be  considered as in poor taste, but it also gets  

appreciated in a particular context though in  an ironical and also in a very different way. 

So, it is important to look at a way in which  ‘kitsch' has been defined in contemporary terms.  

‘kitsch' has been defined as a reduction  of aesthetic objects or ideas into easily  

marketable forms. So, it is also maintains  a close relation with the commercialization  

of art and also with the ideas of globalization,  and the ideas of modern forms of art, getting art  

reduced into marketable goods. Some theories  of postmodernism see the kitschification',  

this is also a term which exists in connection  with the postmodern condition. Some theories of  

postmodernism see the kitschification of cultures  as one symptom of the postmodern condition.  

Baudrillard provides us with an useful definition,  and the kitsch object is commonly understood as  

one of that great army of trashy objects made of  plaster of Paris or some such imitation material  

that gallery of cheap junk accessories falls  in knickknacks, Sudanese lampshades are fake  

American masks which proliferate everywhere  with the preference for holiday resorts and  

place of leisure. As Baudrillard goes on to  the aesthetic of beauty and originality kitsch  

opposes its aesthetics of simulation. Everywhere  it reproduces objects smaller or larger than life  

it imitates material in plaster, plastic etcetera. It aids forms or combines in discordantly;  

it repeats fashion without having been  part of the experience of fashion. This  

proliferation of kitsch which is produced by the  industrial reproduction and the vulgarization;  

in the level of objects of distinctive signs  taken from all registers the bygone, the meow,  

the exotic,or the foxy the futuristic and from  a disordered excessive readymade science has  

it is basis like mass culture, the sociological  reality of the consumer society. kitsch remains  

on the whole completely unselfconscious and  without any political or critical edge. At a  

later point in one of the sessions, we shall also  be discussing some of these things in detail and  

we talk about postmodern narrative techniques,  it may be possible to see schlock and kitsch  

is very liberating from a certain sense. But at the same time it is also important  

to look at, how marxist critiques view this as a  reduction of certain kinds of culture and also,  

how the reduction of all forms of art and  ‘schlock' and ‘kitsch' further moves art  

away from the possibility of a political,  or a cultural understanding of art and the  

other criticism against postmodernism is that; the  commercial culture is no longer held at bay in the  

postmodern phase instead; the commercial culture  it is being incorporated in the postmodern art,  

this is in stark contrast to what  happened during the modernist phase,  

Where there did exist a commercial kind of art,  but it was held at bay , there was very clear  

distinction between the high art of modernism  and the mass, popular low art which was to be  

consumed by the common mass of public. And finally, the major criticism that  

Jameson also levels against postmodernism is;  that the characteristic mode of postmodern art,  

postmodern culture, in general seems to  be pastiche and blank parody it is all  

about an imitation, there is no sense of an  original idea or an original art at all. So,  

why should these things begin to worry anyone from  a postmodern perspective, if there was a breakdown  

of distinction across a high and mass culture  and if the postmodernist are fascinated with  

‘schlock’ and ‘kitsch’ and f commercial cultures  no longer held at bay and if the characteristic  

mode a pastiche and blank parody.Why do we have to  worry about it? What are the consequences of this? 

So, marxist particularly Jameson, he begins to  argue that this also leads to the disappearance  

of the subject , and consequently it also leads  to the loss of history, and loss of history has  

a further fatal consequence, because it deprives  art of originality. Because originality is also  

an act of historicizing. It is also a part  of history. And postmodern art in that sense  

it begins to no longer represent a real past. We only have a sense of ideas of stereotypes  

about the past everything is reduced  to pop history just like pop art,  

when there is a loss of history, when there is an  absence of historicity the marxist begin to feel  

extremely uncomfortable and also incompatible  with the postmodern theories. This is also,  

because marxism draws much from a sense of history  and also its conception of theoretical frameworks  

are closely linked with the many things which  happen in history to real men and the women.

In order to understand; the implications of  the criticisms leveled against postmodernism  

from a marxist point of view we also need  to understand marxism in context. Marxist  

criticism as we all know is offshoot of the  political and economic theory developed by  

Marx and Engels in 19 century and in terms of when  we begin to use ‘marxism' as a critical framework,  

as a conceptual framework to understand,  read, and critique art and culture. It  

is a kind of theory which allows us to locate  all forms of culture within a social context. 

And when we say forms of culture it could  be just about anything, it could be art,  

it could be painting, it could be music,  literature, films, and anything which is produced  

in the cultural context. So, in that sense a  marxist approach to questions of aesthetic is  

also linked inhabitably with questions of class,  economic conditions ,and power . And the marxist  

criticism, the marxist critical approach towards  various cultural phenomena and cultural texts,  

it also tries to explore power relations embedded  and concealed in cultural texts. It also operates  

with the inherent assumption, that every cultural  text, every littering text, every representation  

of culture is also a product, a byproduct and an  offshoot of every single political economic and  

power shifts which are happening in the society.  An art form, a cultural form, according to the  

marxist framework cannot exist, cannot be  generated cannot be produced in isolation  

with the existing power structure or the existing  political and our social historical conditions. 

And for the same reason marxist criticism  is also known as materialist criticism,  

because it explores a link between the actual  material conditions and the cultural forms.  

It could be the various conditions related  to power politics the means of production  

the commercial conditions so, on and so, forth. To further make a sense of Jameson's critiques  

on postmodernism from a marxist perspective it  is important to take a look at a book published  

little earlier in 1981, titled The Political  Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic  

Act. This work notably offers a commentary on  narratives by Jameson and it was also a part of a  

number of his writings on postmodern architecture  and cyberpunk; particularly and he also uses the  

marxist approach to understand, to read and  critique culture in the post industrial era. 

So, his work on narratives also needs to be  understood in this context, because he believes  

that narratives are central to our understanding  of reality. It is based on this assumption,  

that he goes on to critique various forms of  narrative and in modes of production and how  

they engage with the kinds of reality and the  kinds of power structures which are inherent in  

societies. And one of the premises on which his  work The Political Unconscious rests is that;  

all narratives must be read for their connection  with the concrete material realities outside,  

this refers to the outside of the text. The text  could be anything as that we have already noted  

in a post structuralize deconstructive a sense. Accordingly, Jameson was also associated with a  

dialectical criticism of which he was a proponent  of it is also important to further understand,  

what exactly dialectical criticism is. A  dialectical criticism requires situating  

cultural object or a practice within particular  specific historical conditions and practices. And,  

it also locates culture within social and  political structures, it also encouraging a  

totalizing form of thinking; which we have noted  that postmodern theories, post modern frameworks,  

postmodern ideologies are starkly against.  Dialectical criticism also encourages to look at  

narratives as a techniques of containment by the  contradictions of history our marks are silent. 

The term containment is extremely important,  because from a marxist perspective as exemplified  

by the work by Jameson on narratives, the  narratives in general are seen as objects  

tools of containment and this can be further  explained, because from a marxist point of  

view all narratives are considered political.  In that sense the number of marxist critiques  

that is Jameson and Terry Eagleton, they  look at narratives as a political objects,  

they also engage with the possibility of a  narrative being used as a tool for repression. 

And, this works at a very interesting level,  because according to the marxist critiques,  

there is a political unconscious in all kinds  of literary and cultural texts. When the marxist  

critiques look at the political unconscious which  are available in all kinds of narratives they are  

also engaging with a narrative in a very unique  way, because they talk about narratives has  

spaces in which social and political anxieties  are transformed and thematized into films,  

into novels, into various kinds of literary  and cultural productions. In that sense one  

can either see these narratives as expressions  of these anxieties, as expressions of these  

political and social anxieties, but  this is where the marxist intervened. 

But they also remain at the level of the  narrative, they in turn narratives thus  

operate as agents which would manage control,  and repress, these anxieties because they do  

not the possibility of narratives do not  allow these anxieties to erupt into the  

form of revolution. The anxieties are managed  at the level of the narrative, so that they  

escape the possibility of becoming any kind of  a social revolt and this is also the same logic,  

that the marxist critiques have been giving  for the emergence, for the development of  

narratives and number of kinds of expressions  particularly in the a post capitalist societies. 

In other words the marxist critiques particularly  Jameson's work on narratives it entails,  

that the narratives transform the threat of a  social or political anxiety which could have  

potentially led to a revolution and they limit it  to a mere literary representation or a thematic  

representation in the form of literature, or  films, or any such social cultural texts. So,  

given this sort of an approach towards a  narratives; this sort of a dialectical critical  

approach towards narratives Jameson also argues  that - there is a cultural logic inherent as part  

of every kind of capitalism, which had been a part  of all kinds of societies. In that since there  

exists a cultural or literary equivalent of all  kinds of capitalisms, in that sense he talks about  

how realism operates during the; age of market  capitalism and modernism is a dominant during  

imperialism and how postmodernism this becomes  logically the part of multinational capitalism. 

So, all of these are forms of literary  and cultural expressions such as realism,  

modernism and postmodernism. Jameson argues they  are all merely cultural expressions of a deeper  

socio economic form of capitalism. In that sense  every literary or cultural age or every literary  

or artistic expression is also there is the  equivalent of different kinds of capitalism  

and also derives from a certain logic that each  of these different kinds of capitalisms entail. 

Jameson’s particular work Postmodernism or The  Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism is based on two  

major assumptions. One popular and mass culture  could be a means of evaluating and assimilating  

political conditions, to postmodernity  is a consequence of late capitalism,  

because late capitalism , by late  capitalism he also means the age of  

diffused production of multinational capital  of speculator finance and electronic linkages. 

So, taking off from the ideas of narrative  from the marxist perspective and also about  

the various kinds of critiques against  a capitalism it becomes only logical  

that postmodernism is at loggerheads with the  marxist political social and cultural ideas. 

So, what does postmodernism do? In this sense to  quote Jameson, “ this whole global yet American,  

postmodern culture is the internal  and super structural expression of  

a whole new wave of American military and  economic domination throughout the world”.  

Here domination is a key term over here. Though  postmodernism rejects all kinds of domination  

and moves raizomatically against any kind of  hierarchical as well as structural approaches,  

one of the key critiques that Jameson  posits against postmodernism is that,  

that it also has a propensity towards various  forms of domination. And this could be seen very  

evidently in connection with the capitalist  tendencies which are demonstrated, which are  

illustrated in different kinds of postmodernisms. And having said that he draws our attention to the  

consequences of mass culture. When we talk about  capitalism and, when we talk about postmodernism  

it is important to be aware of the consequences  of mass culture and Jameson draws our attention,  

precisely to that. Sime of the things that  Jameson finds a problematic or whether the  

mass culture is that it assimilates  even the radical into common place. 

So, with this absence of hierarchy with  this absolute breakdown of distinctions  

between high art and mass culture,  there is no place for the radical,  

because the radical can no longer be separate, no  longer be distinguished from the common place. So,  

even those things which were once considered  radical or revolutionary, they have lost their  

significance their political and also their  cultural significance as something radical. 

Secondly, as we have already noted postmodernism  and by extension the mass culture, it converts  

all art forms into commodities. And art in  that sense becomes, reduced to a consumer  

product with little intrinsic value, as art  is no longer art. And we have also seen,  

how Baudrillard talks about the various kinds of  imitations the different kinds of productions of  

hyper reality. And how we have access not to the  original, but only to copies and copies of copies  

and here Jameson particularly draws our attention  to this idea of depthlessness, because the mass  

culture imposed by postmodernism it implies a  culture of surface appearance with no depth value.  

And to illustrate this point he also brings in a  discussion of Vincent Van Gogh and Andy Warhol.  

And he draws our attention two paintings one 19th  century; work A Pair of Shoes by Vincent Van Gogh  

and the 20th century work by Andy Warhol a  digital painting title ‘Diamond Dust Shoes. 

And here we also find in terms of the artistic  periods that they occupy one is part of high  

modernism and Warhol's work as part of  postmodernism. They are both thematically  

related as we can see is about shoes, but there is  much more to this than meets the eye and Jameson  

uses this distinction the distinction between Van  Gogh’s painting and the digital art by Warhol to  

talk about the ways in which what high modernist  art and postmodernist art differs in certain  

critical rendering, how it is impossible to look  for any kind of depth any kind of meaning in the  

postmodern art and in this meaninglessness he  finds a certain futility as well. Though post  

modernism is inherently also about moving  away from these kinds of distinctions. 

Jameson is also making us very succinctly aware  to the impossibility of any kind of a political  

critique or any kind of a cultural critique In  the wake of postmodernism. As the first painting  

Van Gogh's A Pair of Shoes, it is actually  drawing our attention to something beyond,  

the actual shoes and Jameson also uses  Heidegger's interpretation of A Pair of Shoes  

by Vincent Van Gogh and talks about how this is  a reconstruction of a whole peasant life itself. 

But, on the other hand there is an impossibility  to engage with Warhol's painting in the first  

place it is about the depthlessness of cultural  products, but what bothers Jameson and many  

other marxist critiques is that; in a painting  such as Warhol's and in such a digital painting  

which is only an imitation there is a nothing  in it to allow us to take a hermeneutic step,  

its also because there is nothing behind the  actual image that one can look for. This sits  

very well with a number of postmodern theories,  that we have discussed a number of postmodern  

concepts that we have been talking about. But, it is also important to take a look at  

the ways in which Jameson finds it impossible to  engage with Andy Warhol’s postmodern painting visa  

v the modernist painting by Vincent Van Gogh.  In order to give you a sense of the original  

work by Jameson, I also read certain exerts from  his work Postmodernism or The Cultural Logic of  

Late Capitalism; and this is from the first  two sections: where we also see Jameson are  

using his prophecies as a cultural critique  as a literary critique and how he draws our  

attention to the different modes of criticism  which a modernist painting and a postmodernism  

painting invite us to. I read from Jameson’s work. “We will begin with one of the canonical works of  

high modernism in visual art, when Van Gogh's  well-known painting of the peasant shows,an  

example which, you can imagine, has not been  innocently or randomly chosen. I want to propose  

two ways of reading this painting, both of which  in some fashion reconstruct the reception of the  

work in a two-stage or double-level process.” “I first want to suggest that if this copiously  

reproduced image is not to sink to the level of  sheer decoration; it requires us to reconstruct  

some initial situation out of which the finished  work emerges. Unless that situation--which has  

vanished into the past--is somehow mentally  restored, the painting will remain an inert  

object, a reified end product impossible to  grasp as a symbolic act in his own right,  

as a praxis and as production.” These are  terms very important for marxist criticism”. 

“This last term suggests that one way  of reconstructing the initial situation  

to which the work is somehow response is by  stressing the raw materials, the initial content,  

which at conference and reworks, transforms,  and appropriates. In Van Gogh that content,  

those initial raw materials, are, I will suggest  , to be grasped simply as a whole object world of  

agricultural misery, of stack rural poverty , and  the whole rudimentary human world of backbreaking  

peasant toil, a world reduced to a it is more  brutal menaced, primitive and marginalized state”. 

So, this sort of reading Jameson goes on the same  is impossible to undertake with Andy Warhol. Now,  

we need to look at some shoes of a different kind,  and displace it to be able to draw for such an  

image on the recent work, of the central figure  in contemporary visual art. Andy Warhol's Diamond  

Dust Shoes evidently no longer speaks to us with  any of the immediacy of Van Gogh's footgear,  

indeed, I am tempted to say that it does not  really speak to us at all. Nothing in this  

painting organizes even a minimal place for  the viewer, who confronts it and the turning  

of a museum corridor or gallery with all the  contingency of some inexplicable natural object. 

Or the level of the content, we have to do with  what are now far more clearly fetishes, in both  

the Freudian and the Marxian senses. Moving on  he argues that “therefore, in Warhol no way to  

complete the hermeneutic gesture and restore to  these oddments that whole larger lived context of  

the dance hall or the ball, the world of jetset  fashion or glamour magazines. Yet; this is even  

more paradoxical in the light of biographical  information: Warhol began his artistic career as  

a commercial illustrator for shoe fashions and  a designer of display windows in which various  

pumps and slippers figured prominently.” Indeed, one is tempted to raise here--far  

too prematurely--one of the central issues  about postmodernism itself and its possible  

political dimensions: Andy Warhol's` work in fact  turns centrally around commodification, and the  

great billboard images of Coca-Cola bottle or  Campbell's soup can, which explicitly foreground  

the commodity fetishism offer transition to a  late capital, or to be powerful and critical  

political statements. If they are not that, then  one would surely want to know why, and one would  

want to begin to wonder a little more seriously  about the possibilities of political or critical  

art in the postmodern period of late capital. I  use this rather lengthy piece from Jameson to put  

forward this argument which he clearly articulates  about the possibility of political or critical art  

in the postmodern period of late capital. Moving on from this rather self explanatory  

passage we also look at how Jameson argues that  postmodernism promotes and postmodernism rather  

fetishizes a culture of pastiche. Pastiche means  an imitation or a parody and it could also be  

referred to as the repetition of former modernist  styles without anything unique for itself,  

anything originality claim for itself,  that sense repetition without any kind of  

uniqueness any kind of originality, it could also  be termed as mimicry or a parody. In that sense,  

when he talks about pastiche which could also be  identified in Warhol's paintings as Jameson does  

it is also about the rejection of older styles and  this rejection the mere rejection becomes a style  

in itself one does not have to try too hard to be  original to be creative the rejection of an older  

modernist style becomes post modernist by itself. So, in that sense Jameson was also a bit critical  

and a very dismissive about the kind of art which  is dominant in the postmodern period and, thereby  

we also know that there are no original artists  or objects. And these are certain things which  

we have surveyed a little earlier in the course.  As well about the lack of originality about the  

absence of any idea of the original or the copy  and we only have imitations and pastiche in stead.  

We only have copies and copies of copies and there  are no originals to compare with or maybe one of  

the other reason examples that we can use to talk  about pastiche would be the remix phenomenon in  

the contemporary, where it becomes impossible to  locate the original in certain cases and the remix  

or the copy becomes the original version just by  virtue of being an imitation.And these are some  

of the major examples of pastiche or parody. There is this painting Mona Lisa by Leonardo  

da Vinci as we all know it is a 16th century  early, 16th century work. There is also a parody  

by pastiche by Marcel Duchamp it is this kind of  imitation, it is this a kind of a parody that the  

marxist critiques, are extremely critical of they  do not find anything original anything inherently  

creative in this kind of works, but they only see  this as a degradation of art and also a removal  

of art from a political or historical context. There is also another pastiche of Salvador Dali's  

painting and here, we also find a kind of mimicry  at work over here a kind of parody at work over  

here and it becomes impossible to even figure  out; what the parody are stands for unlike,  

the original modernist painting which talks about  the modernist crisis and the passage of time. 

And, it also operates at different levels  there is this famous photograph of Thre  

Beatles which has been parodied in the form of  a pastiche in this postmodern version over here. 

So, to sum up I draw your attention to three  features of postmodernism; that Jameson says  

he is extremely uncomfortable with, he also seeks  to criticize postmodernism on the basis of three  

major features that he highlights in the first two  sections of his work. First of all; there is an  

emergence of a new kind of depthlessness and this  is not something a positive that he argues and. 

Secondly, there is a role of photography and  the photographic negative which he argues  

has come to replace art in particular ways  and it also takes away the possibility of  

any kind of uniqueness or creativity within the  artist. And thirdly, he is more concerned about  

the waning of effect in postmodern culture.  Jameson talks extensively about these three  

features and how they also characterize  the end of certain kinds of dilemmas which  

were part and parcel of the modernist crisis. And the end of this dilemma and the embracement  

of a new kind of fragmentation is not something  the marxist are very comfortable with and;  

in the next session we shall continue to look at  some of the concerns raise from the marxist point  

of view as a charges as criticisms leveled against  postmodernism It is also important to understand  

this perspective, it is also important to engage  with Jameson as well as Terry Eagleton at length,  

because it also gives us a different vantage point  from which we can engage with postmodernism. And  

postmodernism in that sense it is not about a  single point of view, it is not about accepting  

an unified or a totalizing view of things.  And so we also encourage these diverse aspects  

which are engage with postmodernism; in order  to be able to understand postmodernism at work  

in different literary and cultural contexts.  So, with that we come to the end of today's  

lecture. Thank you for listening and I look  forward to seeing you in the next session.