Course Schedule: 

Below I have provided a week-by-week schedule of readings and written assignments. In each case, I have included links to electronic versions of the texts we will read. For each reading, I will provide an introduction. You will be expected to read the assigned texts and to respond with micro-essay "responses" (critiques, comments and/or discussion questions) on the course WebBoard by 8:00 AM Central U. S. time. Subsequent responses to the initial positions can be posted throughout the week. I have retained the position responses from the 2003 and 2001 versions of this course for your examination; you may want to look at some of these responses from earlier students to get an idea of the typical style and conventions of the position response.

Second Reading: June 14 (Micro-essay Response Due)
Intro to Base and Superstructure: Ron Strickland

Preface to A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy
From The German Ideology, (Preface)
From The German Ideology, (Civil Society and History)

Suggested Further Reading:
Drew Milne, "Introduction (Part II)," (Marxist Literary Theory, 16-30)
V. N. Volosinov, "Concerning the Relationship of the Basis and Superstructures" (Marxist Literary Theory, pp.60-68)
Raymond Williams, from Marxism and Literature, pp. 11-44
Stuart Hall, "Rethinking the Base and Superstructure Metaphor." In J. Bloomfield, ed. Class, Hegemony and Party

Fifth Reading: June 26 (Micro-essay Response Due)
Intro to Literature and Ideology: Ron Strickland
From The German Ideology, "Idealism and Materialism"
Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (from Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, London: Monthly Review Press, 1971), esp. pp. 127-48; 177-86

Suggested Further Reading:
Dave Harris' Reading Guide to Althusser's ISA Essay
Synopsis of "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses"
Raymond Williams, "Literature" (Marxist Literary Theory, pp 261-70)
Etienne Balibar and Pierre Macherey "On Literature as an Ideological Form" (Marxist Literary Theory, pp 275-295)
Terry Eagleton, "Towards a Science of the Text," (Marxist Literary Theory, pp. 297-327)

Sixth Reading: June 28 (Micro-essay Response Due)
Intro to Modernism/Postmodernism: Ron Strickland
Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno from The Dialectic of Enlightenment
Georg Lukacs, "The Ideology of Modernism" (Marxist Literary Theory, pp. 141-62)
Fredric Jameson, "The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism." From New Left Review 146
Synopsis of "Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism"
Alex Callinicos, "The Jargon of Postmodernity" (Marxist Literary Theory, pp.408-28)

Suggested further reading:
Levee Blanc, "The Antinomies of Melancholy"
Curtis Bowman, "Odysseus and the Siren Call of Enlightenment"
Stephen Bronner, "Dialectics at a Standstill"
David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, Ch. 2-3)
Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, "Postality: The (Dis)simulations of Cybercapitalism," from Postality: Marxism and Postmodernism

Seventh Reading: July 3
Intro to Black Radical Tradition: Ron Strickland
Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism, Ch. 3: Socialist Thought and Nationalism

Recommended Further Reading:
B. Foley, "Roads Taken and Not Taken: Post-Marxism, Antiracism, and Anticommunism"
Ted Allen, "Summary of ... The Invention of the White Race," Part I
Ted Allen, "Summary of ... The Invention of the White Race," Part II
David Roediger, Ch 8 from The Wages of Whiteness
Gregory Meyerson, "Marxism, Psychoanalysis and Labor Competition"
Gregory Meyerson and Jonathan Scott, "An Interview with Theodore W. Allen"

Eighth Reading: July 5 (Micro-essay Response Due)

Intro: Ron Strickland

Black Marxism, Chapter 7: The Nature of the Black Radical Tradition
Black Marxism, Chapter 11: Marxist Theory and the Black Radical Intellectual

Greg Meyerson, Rethinking Black Marxism

Recommended Further Readings:
Omi and Winant, Racial Formation
Balibar Sections in Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class and: Ambiguous Identities (London: Verso, 1991)

Ninth Reading: July 10 (Micro-essay Response Due)

Intro to Materialist Feminism: Ron Strickland
Rosemary Hennessy and Chrys Ingraham, "Reclaiming Anticapitalist Feminism,"
Martha Gimenez, "Materialist Feminism/Marxist Feminism"
Carol Stabile, "Feminism and the Ends of Postmodernism," Materialist Feminism, 395-408

Tenth Reading: July 12 (Micro-essay Response Due)

R. Hennessy, Chapter 3 from Politics and Pleasure: Sexual Identities in Late Capitalism,

Suggested Further Reading:
Friedrich Engels, The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State
Benston, "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation," Materialist Feminism, 15-23
B. Ehrenreich, "What is Socialist Feminism?"Materialist Feminism, 65-70
Martha Gimenez, "The Oppression of Women: A Structuralist Marxist View," Materialist Feminism, 71-82
Kuhn and Wolpe, "Feminism and Materialism," Materialist Feminism, 83-87
Barrett, "Ideology and the Cultural Production of Gender," Materialist Feminism, 88-94

Also of interest: R. Hennessy, "Feminist Standpoint as Ideology Critique"

Eleventh Reading: July 17 (Micro-essay Response Due)

Intro to Postmarxism: Ron Strickland
Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 1-92

Recommended Further Readings:
Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution
Interview with Laclau and Mouffe
Web Resources on Gramsci

Twelfth Reading: July 19 (Micro-essay Response Due)

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 93-148

Intro to Globalization and Neoliberalism: Ron Strickland

Negri and Hardt, Empire, 241-348

Fourtheenth Reading: July 24 (Micro-essay Response Due)

David Harvey, "Neoliberalism and the Restoration of Class Power"

Giovanni Arrighi, "Hegemony Unravelling (Part 1)"

Giovanni Arrighi, "Hegemony Unravelling (Part 2)"