On the Möbius Strip of Critical Revisionism with Fredric Jameson

Abstract: As a critical historian, I did not inherit a legacy from Fredric Jameson, our leading Marxist American theorist. I did benefit from his Marxism and Form (1971) and The Prison-House of Language (1973), and I was publicly critical of The Political Unconscious (1981) and Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (1992). While the former inspired moderate critique, the latter provoked a stronger response, largely because by this time I had been associated for 20 years with the postmodern journal boundary 2 and its primary founding editor William V. Spanos. Nonetheless, I use here The Years of Theory (2024) to explore, I hope fairly, the strengths as well as any perceived weaknesses, to the general advantage of Jameson, to whom I give the last word in a candid moment from one of the book's lectures, showing Jameson in good form and engaging winningly with his student audience.