Modernity as Cultural Politics: Jameson and China

Abstract

Although Fredric Jameson is a towering figure in theory and culture analysis in American academia and beyond, I am tempted to say that nowhere does he have more profound and overarching theoretical and intellectual influence as in post-Mao China. To many contemporary Chinese intellectuals who first exposed themselves to the post-Hegelian, post-Realist, and post-Philosophical discourse or what we call lilun (theory) today, terms like “critical theory,” “cultural criticism,” not to mention postmodernism as a theoretical discourse are either certifiable Jamesonian inventions, or else something thoroughly shaped and inspired by his theoretical presence. Ever since his 1985 visit to China, where he taught at Peking University during the entire Fall semester, Jameson as a text and his Literature Program at Duke have become a privileged place on an increasingly cosmopolitan intellectual map of new generations of Chinese students. Visiting scholars from the West, regardless of their intellectual background, academic specialization, and political persuasion have learned, sometimes uneasily, to anticipate questions from their stubborn Chinese students with persistent reference to Jameson’s work or the Jamesonian problematic.