Rethinking "The Political Unconscious"

dc.contributor.advisorMorris, Wesley A.en_US
dc.creatorMuhlestein, Daniel Kayen_US
dc.date.accessioned2009-06-04T00:17:25Zen_US
dc.date.available2009-06-04T00:17:25Zen_US
dc.date.issued1992en_US
dc.description.abstractAlthough The Political Unconscious is an effective advocate of "the perspectives of Marxism as necessary preconditions for adequate literary comprehension" (75), Fredric Jameson's method of interpretation suffers from a number of determinate insufficiencies: (1) its claim to a properly structural causality is ultimately unjustifiable; (2) its "horizon" of Cultural Revolution is grounded in mechanical and expressive causality; (3) its application to literary texts is an act of interpretive impoverishment; (4) its defense of a Marxian "master narrative" of history is a conflation of the Historical Real and its histories; and (5) its attempt at "articulating a properly Marxian version of meaning beyond the purely ideological" (285) is a kind of ideological conditioning in which an impulse common to all classes is harnessed to the ideological production of a single class. Nevertheless, The Political Unconscious is a critically important text in that it points toward--though it does not make clear--the means of production by which that physical necessity which is the material effect of the Historical Real is in the Symbolic Order (re)textualized into the various narrative forms of causality with which we attempt to understand and explain the determinate relations between the Real and its alienating necessities.en_US
dc.format.extent188 p.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.callnoThesis Engl. 1992 Muhlesteinen_US
dc.identifier.citationMuhlestein, Daniel Kay. "Rethinking "The Political Unconscious"." (1992) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/16552">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/16552</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/16552en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectAmerican literatureen_US
dc.subjectPhilosophyen_US
dc.subjectPolitical scienceen_US
dc.titleRethinking "The Political Unconscious"en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentEnglishen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineHumanitiesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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