Marxism and Cultural Theory

This course will not offer an intensive study of the writings of Karl Marx. It’s a course in the theory of culture which emphasizes what Marxism has and has not contributed to that theory and what a better cultural theory might require. After laying out some basic propositions of Marxist thought and some issues and challenges associated with them when applied to the study of culture, it proposes to develop conceptual coordinates which will enable students to make sense of recent cultural analysis both inside and outside the Marxist orbit, including competing theories of global capitalism and financial crisis. What are the models of the world which are implicitly appealed to by critics interpreting cultural objects and practices and advocating more or less drastic social change? What sorts of cultural interpretation do such models authorize? What are the problematic interfaces between Marxism and other discourses of social justice, like environmentalism, and the models of interpretation to which they appeal?