Suchergebnisse

Affinity between Marxism & Surrealism in Europe was short-lived, confined largely to the decade of 1925-1935. In Latin America, Surrealism & one of its outgrowths, magical realism, have enjoyed a much longer & more fruitful relationship with Marxism. The principle of montage -- the production of shocks by placing everyday images in unexpected contexts -- is central to both Surrealism & magical realism. In Latin America, the montage was appealing not because it revealed the contradictions of modern capitalist society, but because it demonstrated that both the oppression of the strong & the hope of the weak were the result of a dialectic yet unitary historical process. Prominent Latin American poets, thinkers, & writers including Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, & Cesar Vallejo, have used montage in this sense with influential & long lasting results. K. A. Larsen

A critique of Louis Althusser's treatment of classical Marxism. The trend in Marxist cultural theory of detaching the category of culture from its social & historical foundations is blamed on the intellectual legacy of Althusser, whose philosophy has left a profound genealogical imprint on radical cultural & literary theory. This philosophy is characterized as an antirepresentationalism or a ban on consciousness. In contrast to Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, for whom the falsity of consciousness held the possibility for reaching a true consciousness through a dialectic, Althusser believed that consciousness was intrinsically false. Althusser's greatest impact is his theory of science on contemporary radical thought. His notions of theoretical practice are criticized for their logical difficulties, & he is accused of philosphical chicanery & vulgar revisionism. The concepts of overdetermination & ideology are examined. D. Lou

Attacks the conventional distinction between Western Marxism & the ideology of the socialist institutions of the East, arguing that both fall prey to the Marxist treatment of politics & culture as superstructural appendages to the underlying productive forces. Consequently, Western Marxist criticism, like the bureaucratic socialism of the East, is incapable of understanding, let alone directing, ongoing class struggle. The restoration of true dialectical criticism must, it is argued, negate the post-Leninist abnegation of political consciousness. 12 References. A. Levine