Aijaz Ahmad’s essay, “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory’”, was one of the most impactful responses to Fredric Jameson’s article titled “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism”. Jameson’s article is seen as one of the highest debated ideologies about First and Third world cultures and nationalism. Although Jameson does not specifically reference the Global South, it can be inferred through his text that his idea of the “diverse cultures of Africa, South America, and Southern Asia, and their literature, could be represented as having a single “Third-World” cultural logic”, while seeing others such as Europe and the United States as First World (Tally 1). This sparked major controversy.
Jameson was a very influential writer, being known as one of the most popular Marxist critics of his time. In “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism”, Jameson questions the effect of literature and nationalism. He reflects on the idea that “the story of the private individual destiny is always an allegory of the embattled situation of the public third-world culture and society” (Jameson 69). This can somewhat connect to Adichie’s TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story”, that we covered in week one. Aijaz, among many others, express their utter discontent with Jameson’s views: that of being seen as “hasty” (Aijaz 79), “presumptuous” and “nothing less than overarching” (Lazarus 1). Lazarus and Aijaz explain the many ways that “Third World” literature has been significant and vastly impactful to their lives and to the creation of their personal work. Aijaz goes on to criticize Jameson’s claims that “all” Third World literature fits into one box, and gives one overall statement- being considered less than or “third- worldly”.
Although seemingly out of character for Jameson to publish such “bold and outrageous” claims, his essay criticized by his peers does somewhat align to his Marxist views, as proven in his previous works “The Political Unconscious” and “Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture”. Jameson’s sense that “Third-World literature produces a national allegory out of the individual or private narrative is an attempt to illustrate the need for cognitive mapping on a global scale” (Tally 8). Jameson saw colonialism and imperialism as “if societies here are defined not by relations of production but by relations of intranational domination” (Aijaz 79). His colleagues, however, were upset with this idea, as literature does not have to play into capitalism or power of any sort, and certainly does not tell a single story.
Bibliography
Tally, Jr., Robert T. November 9, 2017. “Fredric Jameson and the Controversy over ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.’” Global South Studies: A Collective Publication with The Global South.
Lazarus, Neil. “Postcolonialism and the Dilemma Of Nationalism: AIJAZ AHMAD’S Critique OF THIRD-WORLDISM.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, vol. 2, no. 3, 1993, pp. 373–400., doi:10.1353/dsp.1993.0000.
Jameson, Fredric. “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.” Social Text, no. 15, 1986, p. 65., doi:10.2307/466493.
Ahmad, Aijaz. “Jameson’s Rhetoric of Otherness and the ‘National Allegory.’” Social Text, no. 17, 1987, p. 3., doi:10.2307/466475.
Your post was both informative and intriguing. Not only did it help me understand Aijaz Ahmad’s essay but it also connected the idea of the single story from Adichie’s Ted Talk. Truly, I never interpreted the fact that Jameson was buying into the single story notion until you brought it up. It goes to show how ignorance can often play a factor in changing the course of history, which is what Jameson’s claims have done. The Third World literature is far more than just a nationalistic allegory. Instead, it can encompass so much more, as believed by Ahmad. Thank you so much for your comprehensive words!
I really enjoyed being able to read your post, and realize the overlap of content we are having between weeks; between the idea of a single story from Adichie and how that is similar to the Third World allegory discussion. The quote you from your post that really stuck with me was how Third World literature is “an attempt to illustrate the need for cognitive mapping on a global scale.” I think this quote is true, especially with the emphasis on *need* because that implies that deeper thought needs to be taken regarding this literature.
Hello! I really liked the structure of your context presentation and how it broke down the main ideas of this week. Especially how the separation of “first world” and “third world” countries is supposed to influence the reader’s perception of the respective literary work. I also noticed how the topics we are covering are starting to overlap and how “The Danger of a Single Story” is especially relevant this week when talking about how “third world” literature is generalized to all be the same from the reader who buys into single stories and doesn’t dive into the respective readings.
I have really enjoyed being able to read your post. I found your post informative and well written. I really appreciated you connecting the TED talk that we listened to in the first week with Jameson’s work. Jameson’s work fell into the danger of the single story, it presumed that the Third World Literature was representative off the areas considered to be third world countries. The comparison to Adichie’s TED talk also helped me understand Ahmad’s work better.
Hello! I really enjoyed your post about the connection between Ahmad’s text and Adichie’s TedTalk. I did not think if it this way. Your post prompted me to make more connections between our readings, and I discovered that the other reading this week, Ortiz Cofer’s narrative can be related to de Beauvoir’s “The Other,” in which it is a common experience that minorities’ stories are ignored for being different. Thank you for helping me make this connection, as I’m sure it will be beneficial later in this class. Great post!
This was great summarization of Jameson and Ahmad’s conflicting ideas. You gracefully made a connection back to week one by incorporating Adichie’s TED Talk about single stories, which I found beyond beneficial. I’m curious about your opinion of the fact that Ahmad is currently a professor at the University of California-Irvine. Given how vocal and opinionated Ahmad has proven to be, do you think it is appropriate for him to be educating on his own beliefs or does it provide a strong perspective for his student? Great work this week!
I found your post to be informative and very interesting. The reason being, the connection between this weeks essay and Adichie’s TED Talk made it easier for me to understand the overall message. Depending on the individual who processes this message, one could potentially see that Jameson’s work belittled/underestimated the impact of the Third-World Literature. Furthermore, everyone has their own opinions and perspectives on topics, but I firmly believe it is important to always keep and open-mind. Engaging in such topics, may reveal more messages that one would never think of. Great post!
I found that this context presentation was extremely informative and helped tie in the topics covered in class. The use of Adichie’s TedTalk and the connections to history really set up the reading for this week. Explaining how Marxism is also wrapped into the topics was extremely interesting I also enjoyed how you wrapped Jamesons views into the telling of the topics.
I enjoyed reading this context presentation, as I thought it gave a good summary of the overall message that Ahmad’s essay was portraying. I was particularly interested in how you compared Adichie’s Ted Talk to this essay, and how accurate the comparison turned out to be. Adichie was only discussing how single stories can be applied to people, but this comparison showed how a single story could be compared to many different large scale applications. As I was reading Ahmad’s essay, I was paying attention to the comparison between first and third world countries with the Master-Slave idea. In a way, the first world countries would represent the master, and the third world the slave. While this comparison sounds quite negative, neither the slave or master could exist without the other, showing that as fragile as our global society is we will always rely on the other in some form. Overall, I thought you did a fantastic job! Just wanted to share other thoughts I had throughout this essay.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on Ahmad’s essay. The key ideas were broken down concisely to be understood. Connecting this idea about Jameson’s belief about third world countries being “lesser” and not as developed to about the single stories to the previous idea about single stories helped understand the concepts more clearly about Jameson’s thoughts. Other thoughts could even be referred as well such the idea of de Beauvoir’s “The Other.” Jameson views the third world areas as being worse off and in need for someone and so he most likely classifies them as being the “Other.” The additional touch of reasoning for Jameson’s ideas being that he is a Marxist was a great addition to give to the fact of why he would create these viewpoints.
I think you did a great job on this context presentation over Ahmad’s essay. All of the essays topics were pointed out and elaborated on, making the reader have a much better understanding. When I first read the essay I did not make the connection between Jamesons beliefs and the Ted talk. It is a great comparison that I did not think about. Jameson’s writing very influential pieces with only one perspective in mind, making it a single story. Overall I really enjoyed reading your presentation and learned a lot about this weeks readings from it.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading your context presentation on Ahmad’s essay. Seeing you make the connection and comparison between Ahmad’s essay and Jameson’s article helped me understand the scope of both of those reading and the context behind it. Similarly, your observation of Adichie’s TED Talk in relation to Jameson’s article helped me grasp the idea of a “single story” and how it relates to the history of literature. Also helps highlight the importance of a single story. Reading your presentation helped me develop a wider focus on these readings and has opened up other avenues for consideration.
Hey! I really enjoyed how you put together this presentation. Making the comparasion to Adichie’s Ted talk has further helped me tie in the common themes throughout the weeks. It has showed me that Jameson’s view on third world literature falls in the category of a “single story” or how Jameson views third workd countires as “other”. Great job on your presentation.
Hi, I totally agree with your points in this presentation! I also thought about Adichie’s Ted Talk in the discussion that simple stories can create a stereotypical understanding of people from developing countries or regions. There should not be a simple and direct way to summarize social groups in these fields. Despite the Marxist views by Jameson, there is a negative influence on his points about “national allegory”. Overall an excellent presentation!
Hello! I found this post to be extremely beneficial as it did a great job of expressing some of the important ideas from not just this week’s topics but also connecting back to past topics. Being able to connect this to ideas that we have gone over in the past (idea that I already fully understand) gave me a much better understanding of these new ideas. Being able to connect Fredric Jameson’s article to the idea Adichie discussed in her TED talk made it a whole lot easier for me to grasp what exactly is wrong with Jameson’s writing and why it was so controversial among his peers. One thing that I would like to further discuss to help me gain a deeper understanding of Jameson’s ideas is about where he is getting his content from. I found it extremely interesting that he would say something along the lines that “all” Third World literature fits into one box. This really sparked my interest and made me wonder how he could claim something like this as if he is 100% familiar with “all” Third World literature. To me this really proves “The Danger of a Single Story” as Jameson is clearly only getting a single story.
I thought your use of direct references from the text were extremely helpful in getting a complete understanding of the readings in relation to one another. I agree that the single story video as well as the reading from last week about the One and Other definitely ties together with this weeks readings. In regards to this weeks reading I agree that while not stated most of the countries that would fit into the idea of third world armed in the Southern Hemisphere of the world. I’m not sure why that was not talked about probably because it’s a whole other topic on its own. Overall great post!
The first paragraph was very informative, talking more about Jameson’s article and the Third-World addressed in his writing. Your transition into the second paragraph was also perfect and went into more detail about Jameson and his writing as an ‘influential writer’. It was also interesting to see how you applied the TED talk to Jameson; the comparison you made with the two made sense and was a neat way to look at Jameson’s writing in other ways.
Hello! Great job on your post you put a lot of details in there. I liked all the connections you made. I agree we have had lots of overlap in our first few weeks of content. I especially like your ted talk comparison.