introduction
Chapter 1: Culture: The Cultural Logic of Post-Capitalism
Chapter 2: Ideology: Postmodern Theories
Chapter 3 Video_Surrealism Without the Unconscious
Chapter 4: Architecture: Spatial Equivalents of the World System
Chapter 5: Reading and Division of Labor
Chapter 6: Space: Utopianism After the End of Utopia
Chapter 7: Theory: Immanence and Nominalism in Postmodern Theoretical Discourse
Chapter 8: Economy: Postmodernism and the Market
Chapter 9: Film: Nostalgia for the Present
Chapter 10 Conclusion_Secondary Processing
Americas
Translator's Note
Search
Illustration

Marxists who jumped into the postmodernist debate

In the early and mid-1980s, as European theories, including deconstructionism and poststructuralism, post-Marxist discourses, and the fierce conservative backlash following the Reagan administration began to colonize American academia, ignoring the progressive achievements of the 1960s and proclaiming the ultimate triumph of capitalism and the end of class politics and ideology, a fierce debate was raging over postmodernism.
What kind of art can be called postmodern art?
Is postmodernism a continuation of modernism or a radical break?
Should we support or criticize postmodernism?
Then, Jameson jumped into this debate in 1984 with an article titled “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism” in the New Radical Review, bringing about a stronger ripple effect.


Until then, it was unimaginable to think of Marxism and postmodernism as linked together.
In essence, “Always historicize!” (Jameson) entered the “slaughterhouse of history” (Douglas Keller) under the banner of historical materialism.
On the one hand, Jameson was the target of intense fire from poststructuralists, and on the other hand, he was treated as a Marxist defector by the left.
After that, he published additional in-depth articles on postmodernism, focusing on interpretation, historicity, space, and utopia, which were compiled into this long-remembered book in 1991.


Building a Horizon for Politically Thinking About Postmodernism

The title of this book itself reveals Jameson's approach to postmodernism.
While other theorists have regarded postmodernism as an artistic style, Jameson views it as a cultural expression of a specific political and historical environment called “late capitalism,” that is, as “the cultural logic of late capitalism.”
The term “late capitalism” is borrowed from the economist Ernest Mandel (who distinguished between classical, monopoly, and late capitalism) and is associated with the idea that the current phase of multinational capitalism, far from contradicting Marx’s 19th-century analysis, represents the purest form of capitalism that has ever existed.


Thanks to this, we can understand postmodernism holistically in relation to the core contradictions of late capitalism.
As a result of the changes in the way capitalism operates, there have been profound changes in the way everyday life and culture are organized, not to mention the so-called realm of art.
Through Jameson, we realize that the aesthetics of postmodernism's superficiality, expressed as "depthlessness," "the decline of historicity," "the spatialization of time," and "simulacrum," and the theoretical discourse of poststructuralism emphasizing "textuality" and "immanence," were in fact part of late capitalism's ideological containment strategy, which blocked the encounter with capitalized History as its ultimate referent.

Drawing a cognitive map: the current situation
See it as both a catastrophe and progress.

Jameson also exposes the power of reification inherent in the spatial logic of postmodernism, citing the example of the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, designed by postmodern architect John Portman.
It is impossible to orient yourself in this self-enclosed building, whose surface is made of huge reflective glass.
Postmodern hyperspace transcends the ability of individual human bodies to locate themselves, organize their surroundings through sensory perception, and map their own location.
So, are we left with no other option than to become schizophrenic subjects who celebrate the eternal continuation of the present in the intense ecstasy of consumer society, or in the play of meaningless differences?

Following Marx, who urged us to think of the development of capitalism “both positively and negatively,” Jameson calls for a dialectical understanding of the cultural evolution of late capitalism, that is, a grasp of the current situation as “both catastrophe and progress.”
We must not return to aesthetic practices that were founded on historical circumstances and dilemmas that are no longer of our time.
A political and cultural model appropriate to our situation must focus on the truth contained in postmodernism and the global space of multinational capital.


Jameson argues that we must invent new, previously unimagined ways to break through reality and represent this world's space, and calls for "cognitive mapping" as an attempt to politically and aesthetically assess the subject's position within the global network of late capitalism.
This methodology, which would continue to be developed in Jameson's later work, is unrelated to any attempt to precisely map the real conditions of late capitalism, and paradoxically operates solely on the impossibility of a mimetic representation of late capitalism.
In other words, cognitive mapping is a way of connecting the two spaces of the subject's realm and late capitalism as reality through a fantasy structure, while simultaneously expressing the desire for change in the future, that is, the utopian impulse.

Meanwhile, in Chapter 10, "Secondary Processing," which synthesizes and expands the discussion so far, Jameson tells an interesting story: "Cognitive mapping" was actually a code word for "class consciousness," and through it he attempted to suggest the necessity of a new kind of class consciousness that had never been dreamed of before.

Jameson Revisit

Now that the term "postmodernism" has largely disappeared, after a period of great hype, the publication of this book may feel like a belated visit.
As the postmodern debate was replaced by theories such as postcolonialism, feminism, and sexuality that included the voices of minorities, and as differences, diversity, hybridity, and identity took over as keywords in humanities papers, the holistic thinking of Jameson's style tended to be taboo for a while.


However, as the struggles of micropolitics and identity politics, which seemed to guarantee infinite legitimacy, are transformed (and in some cases, conservative) into a “cultural struggle for recognition and tolerance of difference,” while capitalism continues its victorious march, the name “Jameson” is resurfacing.
In particular, the reflections on the relationship between new social movements and small-group movements and capitalism, and the emphasis on the need for harmony between local and global struggles, confirm the unexpected relevance of this book, which I visited after a detour of 30 years.