Introduction to Postmodern Literary Theory Agenda Why study literary theory?

Repression

Dreams: displacement and condensation (metaphor and metonomy)

Neurosis and psychosis

Transference

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

Jacques Lacan (1901-81)

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990)

Marvin Minsky (1927-)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Communist Manifesto

• Saw capitalism as a driving force of history

• Predicted that it would conquer the world

• Lead to globalization of national economies and cultures

• Would divide world between “haves” and “have-nots”

• Class struggle

• Advocated abolition of private property, traditional marriage, concentration of political power in the hands of the proletariat

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• PREDICTED:

• Old-established national industries and cultures destroyed by large capitalistic entities
• Dominance of American and English lifestyles and products (Coca-Cola, Mickey Mouse)
• Depressions and economic crises (e.g., Asia)
• Loss of local cultures and identities
• JAMESON: “Increasing standardization on an unparalleled scale…as human history becomes “a tortuous progression toward the American consumer as a climax.”

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• FAILED TO SEE:

• Capitalism’s ability to buy proletarian support by gradually enfranchising them
• Social contracts that overcome shortcomings
• Welfare, Social Security
• Growth of an economically “content” middle class
• Socialism created oppressive, authoritarian states
• Working class did not share in wealth
• Class vs. class too simplistic
• Multiple subclasses (women, environmentalists, etc.)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• INFLUENCE OF HEGEL:

• Dialectics
• Thesis > antithesis = synthesis
• Never-ending cycle or process

• Dialectic materialism

• “The material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production.”
• RULING CAPITALISTS > REVOLUTION = COMMUNISM (Few control many) (Many control (Production production) socialized)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• APPLICATION TO LITERARY THEORY:

• “Hermeneutics of suspicion”
• Focus on what the text hides (ideology is silent)
• Hegemony: “A pervasive system of assumptions, meanings and values…that shapes the way things look, what they mean, and what reality is for the majority of people within a given culture” (Antonio Gramsci)
• How characters are shaped and controlled by economics

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• Questions a Marxist literary critic would ask:

• Who was the text written for? Is it a “power play” on the part of one class to dominate another?
• What is the underlying ideology?
• Does the main character affirm or resist bourgeoise values?
• Whose story gets told? Who is left out?
• In what way are characters or groups of people “commodified”?

Louis Althusser (1918-1990)

• Ideologies constructs the subject

• Humans are the result of many different social determinants

• Why didn’t the working classes rebel?

•