Fredric Jameson Critical Essay | Critical Review by Daniel T. O'Hara

Critical Review by Daniel T. O'Hara

SOURCE: A review of The Ideologies of Theory, in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 16, Nos. 2-3, Fall-Winter, 1988-1989, pp. 270-1.

In the following review of The Ideologies of Theory, O'Hara acknowledges Jameson's important place in contemporary literary theory, though finds shortcomings in his assertions.

Of the seventeen reprinted essays in this collection of occasional pieces of America’s leading neo-Marxist theorist [The Ideologies of Theory], only five—two essays in volume one and three in volume two—can be considered still important and undated. These are: “The Ideology of the Text,” “Imaginary and Symbolic in Lacan” (the best single explanation of this difficult revisionary psychoanalytic theorist), “The Politics of Theory: Ideological Positions in the Postmodernism Debate,” “Beyond the Cave: Demystifying the Ideology of Modernism,” and “Periodizing the 60s.” Long, comprehensive, sometimes provocative and intellectually exciting, these essays would have made a significant single volume. Scattered amidst the disposable pieces over two volumes,...
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