Fredric Jameson: Dialectical Criticism and the Politics of Theory

One of the most politically radical of all cultural and literary theorists in the North-Atlantic world, Fredric Jameson’s work remains mostly terra incognita in North-Atlantic academic political theory. Aside from rare invocations of this or that essay or book, there has not been sustained treatment of Jameson’s relentlessly politicizing vocation of dialectical criticism. It has neither been mined by scholars of political theory, nor systematically reconstructed, engaged, or criticized. Yet serious engagement with Jameson could initiate a discussion that simultaneously sheds light on the political import of his form of dialectical criticism, offers an occasion to think through “the internal politics” of theoretical discourses, and how his formulations of dialectical criticism contribute to an earthly understanding of political theory. Obviously, it is impossible to do justice to the vast intellectual breath and range of Jameson’s work in one essay. This essay, accordingly, offers a brief exposition of the main tenets of his dialectical criticism, the internal politics of his defense of Theory, and how both relate to his theorization of utopia, for the sake of a rearticulation of the critical vocation of political theory. Out of and through this engagement with Jameson the essay reflects on the ways in which Jameson’s dialectical criticism offers some indications to recast his own account of utopia from the perspective of a more earthly and profane conception of political theorizing.