Periodizing Jameson: Dialectics, the University, and the Desire for Narrative

Title Page, Series Page, Copyright Page, Dedication, Quotes.

Periodizing Ja­meson The FlashPoints series is devoted to books that consider literature beyond strictly national and disciplinary frameworks, and that are distinguished both by their historical grounding and by their theoretical and conceptual strength. Our books engage theory without losing touch with history and work historically without falling into uncritical positivism. FlashPoints aims for a broad audience within the humanities and the social sciences concerned with moments of cultural emergence and transformation. In a Benjaminian mode, FlashPoints is interested in how literature contributes to forming new constellations of culture and history and in how such formations function critically and politically in the present. Series titles are available online at http://escholarship.org/uc/flashpoints. series editors: Ali Behdad (Comparative Literature and English, UCLA), Founding Editor; Judith Butler (Rhetoric and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley), Founding Editor; Michelle Clayton (Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University ); Edward Dimendberg (Film and Media Studies, Visual Studies, and European Lan­ guages and Studies, UC Irvine), Coordinator; Catherine Gallagher (English, UC Berkeley), Founding Editor; Nouri Gana (Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA); Susan Gillman (Literature, UC Santa Cruz); Jody Greene (Literature, UC Santa Cruz); Richard Terdiman (Literature, UC Santa Cruz) A complete list of titles begins on p. 270. 8f l a s h p o i n t s Periodizing Jameson Dialectics, the University, and the Desire for Narrative Phillip E. Wegner northwestern university press ❘ evanston, illinois Northwestern University Press www.nupress.northwestern.edu Copyright © 2014 by Northwestern University Press. Published 2014. All rights reserved. Digital Printing Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wegner, Phillip E., 1964– author.    Periodizing Jameson : dialectics, the university, and the desire for narrative / Phillip E. Wegner.     pages cm — (Flashpoints)    ISBN 978-0-8101-2981-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)    1. Jameson, Fredric. 2. Marxist criticism. 3. Postmodernism (Literature) 4. Marxian school of sociology. 5. Dialectical materialism. I. Title. II. Series: FlashPoints (Evanston, Ill.) PN75.J36W44 2014 801.95092—dc23 2014012369 For two teachers Fredric Jameson and John Hartzog Jag ska försöka komma ihåg vad vi talat om. —Riddaren Antonius Block, in Ingmar Bergman’s Det Sjunde Inseglet (The Seventh Seal) The “desire for Marx” can therefore also be called a desire for narrative, if by this we understand, not some vacuous concept of “linearity” or even telos, but rather the impossible attempt to give representation to the multiple and incommensurable temporalities in which each of us exists. —Fredric Jameson, introduction to The Ideologies of Theory, volume 1 (1988) ...