Sridhar Uppalapati
COMPSTD 1100
August 30, 2020
Context Research presentation
Hi, my name is Sri (He/him), and today I am going to be providing some context to the excerpt of Aijaz Ahmad’s work on Jameson. Specifically, I am going to be looking into the Three Worlds Theory which is referenced several times in Ahmad’s work, and then I will be providing some more specific reference towards Jameson. Within both areas, the theme of Self vs. Other is prevalent and understanding its use in the Three Worlds theory and then Jameson’s use of the Three World theory helps connect to what Ahmad discusses.
The origins of the Three Words Theory lie in the cold war and the allies of the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The specific usage of the word ‘Third World’ is credited to Alfred Sauvy in a French paper. Sauvy references the idea of a First World that was the U.S. and its allies, a Second World which was the Soviet Union and the communist allies, and lastly the Third world which was all remaining nations. Due to the lower socioeconomic class of many countries in the defined Third World, the term gained new meaning as undeveloped, or poorer nations. Already, we can see the idea of Self vs. Other driving these concepts. In an effort to separate out a large other to strength the Self for each side of the Cold War, an Other was made in the Third World. After the context of the Cold War becomes less relevant the Other remains, and now misclassifies numerous ‘Third World’ countries as impoverished and undeveloped. Ahmad looks at this impact on Jameson’s classification of literature from these Third Worlds as lower than that from the First or Second world. Jameson’s work focused postmodernism, which is a philosophy that looks at our current state after modernizing and criticizes our current state. He laid the basis of his work in the economic impacts of modernism and capitalism. This directly leads into what Ahmad sees in Jameson’s rhetoric regarding Third World literature. As when viewed from a purely western, capitalist point of view the Third World countries have been defined into an Other, that when set up had a lack of development on the scale Western countries were measuring. Ahmad connects many of these so called Third World countries through the colonialism that often caused them to change their development to a Western standard and thus be considered undeveloped. Overall, we can see how a system that was made to define a Self vs. Other for the Cold War helped perpetuate the effects of colonialism to modern day.
Citations:
Silver, Marc. “If You Shouldn’t Call It The Third World, What Should You Call It?” NPR, NPR, 4 Jan. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/01/04/372684438/if-you-shouldnt-call-it-the-third-world-what-should-you-call-it.
Felluga, Dino. “Modules on Jameson: On Postmodernity.” Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Jan. 31, 2011. Purdue U. 8/28/2020. <http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/postmodernism/modules/jamesonpostmodernity.html>.
Samantha Kilbane
COMPSTD 1100
August 29, 2020
Frederick Jameson’s Words Spark Critique
This week’s reading is a critique by Aijaz Ahmad in response to an essay written by Frederick Jameson. In order to understand what Ahmad is claiming about Jameson, it is important to know a little about Jameson, and his piece Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism. Jameson published his journal entry to the Social Text in 1986, and just one year later, Ahmad came out with his response to Jameson’s words.
To begin, Frederick Jameson is a current professor at Duke University in Comparative Literature and Romance Studies. Duke’s faculty directory describes Jameson as an American literary critic, theorist, and author with a “… need to analyze literature as an encoding of political and social imperatives, and the interpretation of modernist and postmodernism assumptions through a rethinking of Marxist methodology” (Duke University). Recognizing Jameson’s Marisxt thought process, gives a better understanding behind his works. Marxism is greatly centered around theories and principles of socialism, with a focus on class struggle and dialectical materialism (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
Professor of english at Texas State University, Robert T. Tally Jr., theorizes that Jameson wrote his “Third-World” essay in response to his previously published book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism in 1991. Tally supports this claim as he mentions the works state very similar ideas, yet the “Third-World” essay was omitted due to the criticism it was expected to receive, hence Ahmad’s essay. Jameson receives much of his criticism toward his claim that all third world country literature creates a ‘national allegory’. To quote Jameson from his essay, “[third-world literature] project[s] a political dimension in the form of national allegory: 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). Controversy becomes thick with this singular labeling of countries with such diverse cultures.
So how does this connect to Aijaz Ahmad’s essay? Well, as Ahmad quickly mentions, they are a writer from India and commonly write in the Urdu language. In Jameson’s piece, he writes that countries such as Africa, South America, and Southern Asia all fall under the same title of “third-world” based on the literature that is produced from these countries (Tally). Ahmad is one of many authors to criticize this essay by Jameson. Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism continues to spark controversy among readers almost 25 years later.
Works Cited
Jameson, Frederic. “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism.” Duke
University Press, Social Text, 1986.
“Marxism.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster,
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Marxism.
“Program in Literature.” Fredric Jameson | Program in Literature,
literature.duke.edu/people/fredric-jameson.
Tally, Robert T. “Fredric Jameson and the Controversy over ‘Third-World Literature in the Era of
Multinational Capitalism.’” Global South Studies, U.Va., Nov. 2017, globalsouthstudies.as.virginia.edu/key-thinkers/fredric-jameson-and-controversy-over-“third-world-literature-era-multinational.
Anne Gerhart
September 5, 2020
Comic Books and Social Activism
“March: Book One”, written by late congressman and respected leader in the civil rights movement John Lewis with collaboration from cowriter Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell, provides a harrowing look into the realities of creating a movement in a graphic novel form that is accessible to many readers. It not only provides an intimate glance into Lewis’s life, but also teaches readers about the roots of the doctrine of nonviolent direct action, how this ideology was spread, and how this method was used in order to make real change in a corrupt, unjust, and racist system.
To give more context for our readings this week, I thought it would be helpful to provide additional background on how the medium of comic books and graphic novels have been used to share ideas about cultural, social, and political issues. With the advent of social media, many current movements rely on the quick, decentralized spread of information made possible with websites like Twitter. it is interesting to learn how the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement took advantage of sermons at church, radio broadcasts, pamphlets, and even graphic novels and comic books to spread their information and rally young people to take part in protests and daily acts of activism. The graphic style of “March: Book One” mirrors “Martin Luther King and The Montgomery Story,” a sixteen-page comic book published in 1957 distributed for 10 cents, which inspired many. Choosing this medium to tell the story of Martin Luther King Jr.s’ life and involvement in civil rights was a great way to bring youth into the movement, and Lewis even writes on page 87 that the first four freshman who took part in lunch counter sit-ins in 1960 were inspired to do so because of that comic. They even brought the comic book with them to the counter (Klein).
Comic books at this time were incredibly popular with young people; many cite that “The Golden Age of Comic Books” was between 1938 and 1956 (Superworld Comics). Comics were popularized by characters like Superman and often featured current events, such as superheroes defeating the Axis Powers. “The Silver Age of Comic Books” was between 1956 and 1970 and by this point comics were an established art form (Superworld Comics). More diverse genres were beginning to be represented in comics with commercial success, however comics were not universally appreciated. A Senate committee held hearings on the alleged link between comics and juvenile delinquency on television in 1954, stirring conversations about this new potentially deviant art form (Klein). It was controversial to tell King’s story in this medium, but despite this controversy comics remained well-loved by young people, and the choice to tell this story in a comic was a smart move to get young people involved. Lewis choosing to write his story in the same form serves both as a nod of respect to civil rights comics that came before and as a way to engage young people in social issues by introducing them to activism against injustice in comic form.
Works Cited
Klein, Christopher. “The MLK Graphic Novel That Inspired John Lewis and Generations of Civil Rights Activists.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 7 Feb. 2020, www.history.com/news/civil-rights-graphic-novel-mlk-john-lewis.
Lewis, John, et al. March: Book One. Top Shelf Productions, 2013.
“What Defines the Golden Age from the Silver Age of Comic Books?” Superworld Comics, 5 Nov. 2019, www.superworldcomics.com/blog/comic-books/what-defines-the-golden-age-from-the-silver-age-of-comic-books/.