Marxist, New Historicist, and Cultural Materialist Approaches

Marxism

A social, economic, and political philosophy describing the classist structure where the ownership class (bourgeoise) take advantage of the working class, and how the working class can rectify the social inequality.

Karl Marx and Friederich Egels

Founders of Marxism

Modes of Production

A theme of Marxism

Goods made via technology and social connections (newspaper, films, published novels, etc.)

Power, Powerlessness, and Empowerment

A theme of Marxism

What will people in power do to maintain their agency? What will people without power do to gain agency? (higher vs. lower class conflict)

Economic Base Affection Ideological Superstructure

A theme of Marxism

How distribution of labor and goods determines/is determined by media, government, religion, and education (connection between poverty and illiteracy)

The Communist Manifesto (1848), Red Rising, The Dispossessed, Making Money (Terry Pratchett)

Notable Marxist Writings

New Historicism (American Marxism)

Identifies the powers in a text’s production and reproduction (typically done by academics).

Stephen Greenblatt and Louis Montrose

Notable authors of New Historicism

Attempts to remove political stance when analyzing social/political movements

Reading method of New Historicism

Cultural Materialism (British Marxism)

Cultural works are grounded in their social/political contexts, and their readings are shaped by the economic and political state of their readers.

Raymond Williams, Allen Sinfield, and Catherine Belsey

Notable authors of Cultural Materialism

Politically charged critiques of texts and their maintenance

Reading Method of Cultural Materialism

Cultural Materialists and New Historicists

Both groups use similar argumentative models from Poststructuralism and Psychoanalytical

Cultural Materialists added feminist and postcolonial interpretations later

Social Realism

Describe the world as accurately as possible

Georg Lukács (1885–1971)

Attached to Social Realism

Characters represent social classes and their burdens (ie. Realism/looks for linear narratives)

Reading method of Social Realism

19th century epics

Writings of Social Realism

What Social Realism does:

Assumes good art “reflects and refracts” the world

Prefers structured forms (ie. sonnets) and long, descriptive language

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), T.S. Eliot, Franz Kafka, James Joyce

Socialist Post / Modernism

Reading Method: Stand back and be reflective/objective instead of emotional (allows for multiple realities/readings)

Readings: In the Penal Colony, Ulysses, The Trial, The Wasteland, Epic Theatre

→Response to ridged constraints of Realism
→Promotes new and critical thought on experiencing the world (emergence of Avant-Garde)
→Focused on the functions of the mind over the outside world

Walter Benjamin

Theory: Artists must shock the masses to create meaningful revolutionary change

“The World of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Theory: Writers must unearth the suppressed histories of the working class

→Art is recognized as a commodity with emergence of mass printing

Louis Althusser

Ideological Subjects and Agents

Removes economic production from conversation by breaking institutions into Ideological State Apparatuses (schools, law, religion) and Repressive State Apparatuses (police and military)

Definition of an individual: someone complies, refuses, or finds another definition assigned by an outside institution

Gaps and Silences

Writer: Pierre Macherey

Writing: A Theory of Literary Production

Reading Method: Pay attention to the events/people in history that are ignored/glossed over. How does the narrative change as a result?

→Presence: Expressed subject matter

→Absence: Suppressed subject matter

→Narrative can be used for expression and repression

Dominant, Residual, and Emergent Ideologies

Raymond Williams’ ideological framework

Every text has all three

Residual = Past Dominant = Present Emergent = Future