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Is politics really downstream from culture, or vice-versa? Marxism has often been dismissed for its supposed inability to explain the world of art and culture, with its reductionistic base-superstructure model. In the era of Stalinism, writers and artists were simply branded as “bourgeois”, often with dire consequences. But Marxism also contains within it a rich tradition of cultural analysis, seeking to situate art and literature in its full social and historical context.
What are the politics of culture? Will the Revolution be televised?
Readings:
Lucien Goldmann, Toward a Sociology of the Novel
Mikhail Lifshitz, “Leninist Criticism”
Raymond Williams, “Marxism and Culture”
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