Apple Podcasts | Spotify
The first of two installments contextualizing Fredric Jameson's lectures at the 1977 Institute On Culture & Society begins with a discussion of "Marxism & Historicism," followed by conversations about historicizing the lectures [8:00], the process of recovering them [33:30], a key passage about commodity as its own ideology [55:00], and the long arc of Jameson's thought and influence [71:30].
If you prefer to listen to Jameson’s lectures first, they are: “Models of Ideological Analysis” and “Ideology: Marx & Lukacs”
Cast (in order of appearance):
Robert T. Tally Jr. is Professor of English at Texas State University and the author of For A Ruthless Critique of All That Exists (Zer0, 2022) and Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism (Pluto, 2014). He is also the editor of Verso’s Jameson at 90 series.
Anna Kornbluh is Professor of English at University of Illinois, Chicago and the author of Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Caleb Smith is Professor of English & American Studies at Yale University, as well as Chair of English. He is the author of Thoreau’s Axe: Distraction & Discipline in American Culture (Princeton UP, 2023) and “Goodbye to The Greatest Marxist Critic of Our Time” (The Chronicle, 2024).
Isabel Bartholomew is a PhD candidate in English at University of California, Irvine and the author of “What Was The Sitcom? On Grace Lavery’s Closures” for Los Angeles Review of Books. Her work with the Critical Theory Archive at UCI was essential to this project.
Fredric Jameson was the Knut Schmidt Nielsen Professor of Comparative Literature and Director of the Institute of Critical Theory at Duke University.
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast.
All music for this season of The American Vandal Podcast comes from the Tennessee-based roots ensemble DownRiver Collective. Most of the tracks come from their most recent EP, Off The Shelf. You can purchase it direct from the band here. It's also available on Spotify and Apple Music.
Tracks featured in this episode are “Walls,” “Wasted Time,” “As It Was,” “Days Don’t Stop,” “Daylight Breaks,” and “Kettleridge”
Episode Bibliography:
Theodor Adorno, “Culture Industry Reconsidered” New German Critique (Autumn 1975) [trans. Anson G. Rabinbach]
Perry Anderson, The Origins of Postmodernity (Verso, 1998)
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backwards (1888)
Edward Bellamy, Equality (1897)
Bruce Boone, Century of Clouds (Hoddypoll Press, 1980) [2009 Nightboat Books Edition]
Christopher Breu, “On Prophetic Form & The Whole Tangled, Dripping Mass of The Dialectice” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Nicholas Brown, “Rereading ‘On Rereading Doktor Faustus’” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Maria Elisa Cevasco, “History Is What Hurts” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Maria Elisa Cevesco (trans.), Pós-modernismo: A Lógica Cultural do Capitalismo Tardio by Fredric Jameson (Temas, 1997)
Friedrich Engels, Socialism: Utopian & Scientific (1880)
Terry Eagleton, Criticism & Ideology (New Left Books, 1976) [2006 Verso Edition]
Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of The Aesthetic (Blackwell, 1990)
Bryant Morey French, Mark Twain & The Gilded Age: The Book That Named An Era (Southern Methodist UP, 1965)
John Guillory, Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation (U Chicago P, 1993) [30th Anniversary Edition]
Daniel Hartley, “Unintimidated Languages” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
G. W. F. Hegel, Elements of The Philosophy of Right (1820) [1991 Cambridge Edition]
Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative As A Socially Symbolic Act (Cornell UP, 1981)
Fredric Jameson, Marxism & Form (Princeton UP, 1974)
Fredric Jameson, The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism & Russian Formalism (Princeton UP, 1975)
Fredric Jameson, “Reification & Utopia in Mass Culture” Social Text (Winter 1979)
Fredric Jameson, “Marxism & Historicism” New Literary History (Autumn 1979)
Fredric Jameson, “Models of Ideological Analysis” 1977 Institute On Culture & Society
Fredric Jameson, “Ideology: Marx & Lukacs” 1977 Institute On Culture & Society
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (Duke UP, 1992)
Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno or The Persistence of The Dialectic (Verso, 1990)
Fredric Jameson, “Postmodernism & The Consumer Society” [Original Version, 1983], revised and extended version published as first chapter of The Cultural Turn (Verso, 1998)
Fredric Jameson, The Years of Theory: Postwar French Thought To The Present (Verso, 2024)
Fredric Jameson, “Periodizing the 60s” Social Text (Winter 1979)
Fredric Jameson, An American Utopia: Dual Power & The Universal Army (Verso, 2016)
Fredric Jameson, “Allegories of The Hunter” in Inventions of A Present (Verso, 2024)
Fredric Jameson, The Geopolitical Aesthetic: Cinema & Space In The World System (Indiana UP, 1995)
Fredric Jameson, The Ideologies of Theory (Verso, 2009)
Fredric Jameson, Sartre: The Origins of Style (1961) [1984 Columbia UP Edition]
Fredric Jameson, Brecht & Method (Verso, 1998)
Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism (Verso, 2024)
Anna Kornbluh, “Marxist Interpretation as a Vocation” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Anna Kornbluh, The Order of Forms: Realism, Formalism, & Social Space (U. Chicago, 2019)
Gaylord C. Leroy, “The Marxism of The Marxist Literary Group” Minnesota Review (Spring 1978)
Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House” from Sister Outside (Ten Speed, 1984)
Sylvère Lotringer & David Morris, Schizo-Culture (Semiotext(e), 2014)
György Lukács, The Historical Novel (1937) [1983 University of Nebraska Edition with Introduction by Fredric Jameson]
Karl Mannheim, Ideology & Utopia (1929)
Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I (1867)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (1932)
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (McGraw-Hill, 1964) [2003 Gingko Press Edition]
Olivier Neveux, “On Brecht & Method” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Friedrich Nietzsche, “On The Uses & Disadvantages of History For Life” (1874) in Untimely Meditations (1876) [1997 Cambridge Edition]
Kristin Ross, “Synchronic History” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Always Historicize?” The American Vandal Podcast (October 1, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “The Historical Novel” The American Vandal Podcast (October 18, 2024)
Matt Seybold et al, “Literary Sociology a.k.a. The Institutional Turn a.k.a. The Spreadsheet School of Literary Criticism” The American Vandal Podcast (July 15, 2025)
Matt Seybold et al, “Cruel Optimism & The Enclosure of The Commons” The American Vandal Podcast (September 22, 2024)
Caleb Smith, Thoreau’s Axe: Distraction & Discipline in American Culture (Princeton UP, 2023)
Caleb Smith, “Goodbye to The Greatest Marxist Critic of Our Time” The Chronicle of Higher Education (December 11, 2024)
Caleb Smith, “Fredric Jameson: The Marxist Critic Who Remained Open To Mystery” The Yale Review (October 3, 2024)
Patrick Story, “The Spirit of St. Cloud: A Report” Minnesota Review (Spring 1978)
Robert T. Tally Jr., For A Ruthless Critique of All That Exists: Literature in an Age of Capitalist Realism (Zer0 Books, 2022)
Robert T. Tally Jr., Fredric Jameson: The Project of Dialectical Criticism (Pluto, 2014)
Robert T. Tally Jr., “Historicizing The Present” Jameson at 90 (Verso, 2024)
Robert T. Tally Jr., J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: Realizing History Through Fantasy, A Critical Companion (PalgraveMacmillan, 2022)
Robert T. Tally Jr., “Unhappy Is The Land That Needs Heroes: Remembering Fredric Jameson” E-CIBS (December 16, 2024)
Robert T. Tally Jr., “On Always Historicizing: The Dialectic of Utopia & Ideology Today” PMLA (May 2022)
Robert T. Tally Jr., Nicholas Brown, Maria Elisa Cevasco, & Fabio Durao (ed.), The Future of Totality: Fredric Jameson & The Prospects of Critical Theory (Duke UP, 2026) [In Production]
Mark Twain & Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) [2006 Modern Library Edition]
Raymond Williams, Marxism & Literature (Oxford UP, 1977)
Raymond Williams, “Base & Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory” New Left Review (Nov-Dec, 1973)
Nathan Wolff, Not Quite Hope & Other Political Emotions In The Gilded Age (Oxford UP, 2019)
Nathan Woolf, "First As Farce: Structures of Feeling in The Gilded Age" Quarry Farm Symposium Keynote (2024)
