CLS3250

Marxist critical theory

Proposed to be offered next in 2000

Andrew Milner

12 points - 3 hours per week - Clayton

Objectives Upon completion of this subject students should be able to demonstrate substantial familiarity with recent debates in cultural theory; articulate the analytical skills, theoretical vocabularies and conceptual apparatuses studied in the subject; demonstrate a sense of their own personal and cultural reflexivity; write clear, grammatically and syntactically appropriate, independent essays on the topics chosen for assessment.

Synopsis 'Western Marxism' is the term coined by Merleau-Ponty to describe that tradition of 'critical' Marxism which developed in Western Europe and later in the United States by way of a more or less deliberate reaction against official communist Marxism. Literary and cultural theory represents one of the more significant dimensions of Western Marxist thought in the period since the World War One. As Perry Anderson observes: 'Western Marxism...came to concentrate overwhelmingly on study of superstructures...It was culture that held the central focus of its attention'. The subject will examine the two main waves of Western Marxist theorising: that which developed in the aftermath of the World War One and under the impress of the social crises of the interwar period; and that which developed as a critique of advanced capitalism from the 1960s onwards. They will each be examined for their respective accounts of the relationships between art, culture and society.

Assessment Two seminar papers (1000-1500 words each): 20% each - Long essay (6000 words): 60%

Preliminary reading

Anderson P Considerations on Western Marxism New Left
Bennett T Formalism and Marxism Methuen
Eagleton T Marxism and literary criticism Methuen
Nelson C and Grossberg L (eds) Marxism and the interpretation of culture Macmillan

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