ENGL 308 A: Marxism and Literary Theory

MARXISM AND MARXIST LITERARY &

CULTURAL THEORY

Engl 308A

Professor Alys Weinbaum

Class time: Tu/Th  12:30-2:20

Classroom:  MUS 223

Office hours: drop in office hours after class on Tu/Th 2:30-3:00

Other appointments may be set up via email.

Office location:  408B Padelford

Email: alysw@uw.edu

Course Description

This course begins with a world changing text by Marx and his collaborator, Engels, and then proceeds to examine the debates that have emerged among theorists and philosophers who have taken up Marxist ideas and run with them.  These thinkers have expanded on Marx’s insights about class conflict and history, and have sought to understand how capitalism, racism, and sexism intersect and thus work together to create dominant systems of power, or what Marxists often call hegemony. At the center of the course is the question of how 19th century Marxist ideas about political economy (aka economics), history, and philosophy have been taken up by 20^th and 21^st century scholars, and how a distinct tradition of interpreting literature, culture, and society from a Marxist perspective, using Marxist tools, has developed over time.

By contrast to other models of literary and cultural criticism which often seek to find transcendent messages and universal meanings in literature, art and other cultural productions, Marxists situate all texts within their historical contexts of production and reception. In so doing, Marxists seek to understand how power dynamics (including those informed by class, race, gender, and sexuality) create meaning, and how the conflicts that result from the imposition of power impact the meaning, message, genre, style, and form of all cultural production.

Our study of Marxist theory will necessarily involve close, intensive reading of dense and often highly philosophical or abstract texts. Through engagement with these texts we will seek to understand how a historical materialist method indebted to Marx and Engels shapes contemporary literary and cultural studies scholarship, and how diverse critical practices (sometimes given labels such as “critical theory,” “feminist theory,” “critical race theory,” "postcolonial studies," or “cultural studies”) sit within an expansive Marxist intellectual tradition. Over the course of the quarter we will treat several literary fictions and contemporary films. We will consider how our understanding of the meaning of each is shaped by the Marxist frameworks that the course introduces, and how each cultural text can be used, in turn, to reveal the possibilities and pitfalls of Marxist theories and methodologies.

Course organization

This course is loosely organized into three units that treat several of the issues and concepts repeatedly returned to by Marx, Engels and their interpreters and interlocutors: I) history and class; II) racial capitalism and its reproduction; and III) fetishism, ideology and culture.   In Unit I, we focus on the idea of “class,” paying special attention to how social and economic classes function as motors for historical transformation (historical materialism).  In Unit II, we explore how concepts of race and gender intersect with those of class and are instrumentalized to make capitalism go.  In Unit III, we examine how Marxist theories of fetishism and ideology can be used to study language, literature, and cultural production more broadly.

Class format

I generally begin each class meeting by contextualizing the day’s readings and providing opening questions.  During lecture I mark out the important aspects of the readings and explain how they connect to other readings and ideas.  I will not explain the readings to you, and I will not use PowerPoint.  It is your responsibility to take careful handwritten notes each time we meet.  Lectures are followed by class discussion in large and/or small groups, depending on my pedagogical goals for the day.  The meaning of the readings will emerge through our collective discussion of them.  Unpacking readings successfully depends on sharing insights and generously engaging with the ideas of your classmates.  You should come to each class meeting ready to actively participate.

Learning goals

• Learn to read dense theoretical and philosophical texts.
• Learn to write about these texts with clarity and nuance.
• Learn to write about cultural texts by setting the theories examined in this course to work.
• Learn to talk about course texts in informed and nuanced ways.
• Understand how Marxist theory develops out of intensive dialogue among thinkers.
• Evaluate the usefulness of Marxist theory as a distinct critical practice.
• Evaluate the limitations of Marxist approaches.

Course requirements in brief 

• Active, prepared, and informed participation each time class meets.
• A complete set of 5 written responses treating course materials
• Your careful class notes posted to the discussion board upon request (at least 1-2 times per quarter). 

Course materials

All readings are available on Canvas in the “files” section.  You are expected to print out all readings and to bring hard copies to class in order to facilitate close reading and class discussion.

Supplementary reading/listening

This course is designed to provide additional materials for those who want to go deeper.  There are always a few of you!  If you do the supplementary reading/listening and wish to incorporate ideas from these in your responses you may do so. 

Participation

Regular participation in our class discussion is required.  As noted above, the success of this course depends on the quality of our discussion.  In order to process dense and complex materials you not only need to read carefully, you also need to discuss readings with others.  If this will be difficult for you for whatever reason, it is your responsibility to come speak with me in week 1 so we can work out a game plan; alternatively you can choose a different course.

This course is fast paced.  To do well, you must keep up with reading and writing assignments. If you miss a class meeting, read the notes posted to our class discussion before returning to class. 

It may be detrimental to miss more than two class meetings per quarter.  If you do not attend class and/or fall behind in the readings, it will be difficult to submit written work that meets the minimum requirements for this course.  If you know you will need to miss a particular class meeting, I expect you to contact me to let me know well in advance and to consult posted class notes before returning to class.

Written responses

All responses MUST thoughtfully engage the prompt that is included in the schedule of readings and under the assignment submission tab for each response.  All submitted responses must take into account any changes to the prompt that have been discussed in class or posted as announcements prior to the response due date.

Responses must be at least 3 double spaced pages in length and may not exceed 1,000-words (generally 1,000 words = 4-double spaced pages). This word limit requires you to hone skills of self-editing for meaning, clarity, and organization. In short, the structural constraint is intended to help you become a better and more thoughtful writer.  

All responses must always be organized, edited and proof read.

Refer to Prof. Weinbaum’s reader response guidelines, appended at the end of this syllabus.

Summary of course expectations

• Regularly offer thoughtful ideas and relevant questions about the readings during class discussions large and small. This means completing all readings/viewings prior to our discussion of them and coming to class prepared to connect readings to ideas presented in lectures, to prior discussions, and to related readings.  
• Write thoughtful responses that treat specific ideas, passages, scenes, and concepts and engage relevant issues discussed in class. Put otherwise, the more close reading and engagement with course lecture and discussion you demonstrate in your responses the better!
• Regularly submit written work that is carefully prepared.Responses must be organized, edited for content, and proof read for ease of reading.  Sloppy work will result in partial credit. 
• AI (including ChatGPT) is not to be used in producing written work for this course.  Assignments suspected of using AI will be graded down or given a zero grade. 

Grades

Your grade is based on a combination of in class participation  and submission of a complete set of written responses. Response that meet the expectations described above will be counted fully toward your grade.  Responses that fail to meet stated expectations will receive partial or no credit.

Your starting grade in this course is 3.4 or B+.  This grade will be given to all students who regularly participate in class and turn in 5 written responses that meet the above expectations. Each missing response will result in points deducted.  Assuming regular participation, the first missing response will drop your course grade to 3.0, the second to 2.5, the third to 1.9.   Note that in the absence of regular participation these grades may drop lower still.  The minimal grade required in this course for credit for the English major is 2.0.  More than three missing responses will result in automatic failure of this course.

To receive a grade higher than 3.4 in this course you must complete at least 6 responses. Those who complete 6 responses that meet expectations and regularly participate will receive a grade in the A range (3.5-4.0).

Late responses will not be accepted except under exceptional circumstances or by advance agreement.  If you miss a response deadline, simply move on to the next response.  There are 7 response options on the syllabus—you may miss up to two response deadlines and still get a B range grade in this course.

If you wish to receive a detailed comments on a particular response or seek help with writing responses email me to set up time during office hours.

The grade scale for this course follows the University of Washington numerical grading system.

SCHEDULE OF READINGS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Note:  The following schedule is subject to change.  All changes will be discussed in class and/or sent out as announcements.  It is your responsibility to check your email daily and to check for any changes.

UNIT 1:  History and Class

Week 1 

Thursday, January 4

Introduction to the course

Week 2

Tuesday, January 9

Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto (1848), (pp. 1-39 Oxford edition)

Thursday, January 11:  No class meeting—Note: there is heavy reading in Week 3; begin it now.

Response #1 due Friday, January 12, 12-noon.

Response #1 must focus on a particularly salient, interesting, or surprising passage from The Communist Manifesto.  It should include a concise summary of the section (I-III) of the text from which the passage is excerpted, and it must raise a question about the argument in that section that emerges from your close analysis of the particular passage you have selected.  

Week 3

Tuesday, January 16

Continue discussion of Manifesto

"Prefaces" to the English (1888), German (1890), and Polish (1892) editions

Karl Marx, “Theses Concerning Feuerbach” (1845) and “A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy” (1859)

Supplementary reading:

Nancy Fraser, “Omnivore:  Why We Need to Expand Our Conception of Capitalism”

Thursday, January 18

Immanuel Wallerstein (two essays),  “The Ideological Tensions of Capitalism:  Universalism versus Racism and Sexism” and “Class Conflict in Capitalist World Economy.” 

UNIT II:  Racial Capitalism and Its Reproduction

Week 4

Tuesday, January 23

David Roediger, "White Skins, Black Masks:  Minstrelsy and White Working Class Formation before the Civil War," and "Irish-American Workers and White Racial Formation in the Antebellum United States"

Matthew Desmond, “Capitalism” in Nicole Hannah-Jones eds., The 1619 Project.

Supplementary reading:

You can explore the 1619 project, as first published in the New York Times Magazine, here:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/1619-america-slavery.html

Thursday, January 25

Jodi Melamed, “Racial Capitalism” 

Supplementary reading:

Nancy Fraser, “Glutton for Punishment:  Why Capitalism is Structurally Racist"

Response #2 due Friday, January 26, 12-noon.

Response #2 must draw on two of the readings from week 4 and place them into conversation.  What is the most important or interesting theme you have you learned about racial capitalism from these two readings?  How do these two readings together contribute to this common theme?  Be specific.  How has this idea allowed you to think about an event in your life or a current event in new ways?  

Week 5

Tuesday, January 30

Boots Riley dir., Sorry to Bother You. 

The film is available on numerous platforms.  You are responsible for viewing it prior to class.  Please take viewing notes for use in writing your response and for reference during class discussion.

Supplementary listening:

Robin D. G. Kelley, “The Rebellion Against Racial Capitalism."  Available on the Intercept as article or podcast: https://theintercept.com/2020/06/24/the-rebellion-against-racial-capitalism/

Thursday, February 1

Silvia Federici (two essays from Part I), "Wages Against Housework" and "Why Sexuality is Work" from Revolution at Point Zero

Response #3 due Friday, February 2, 11:59 pm.  All students must do this response.

Response #3 must offer an analysis of a particular scene in Riley’s film. Use your analysis of this scene to meditate on a key insight that you have drawn from one of the key readings on the relationship between racism and capitalism (Wallerstein, Melamed, Desmond, Fraser and Roediger).  First elaborate in detail the particular theoretical insight you have selected as your focus, then bring this insight to your analysis of a particular scene from the film.

Week 6

Tuesday, February 6

Silvia Federici, "the Reproduction of Labor Power in the Global Economy and the Unfinished Feminist Revolution" 

Supplementary reading:

Nancy Fraser, "Care Guzzler:  Why Social Reproduction Is a Major Site of Capitalist Crisis"

Alessandra Mezzadri, “On the Value of Social Reproduction” https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/on-the-value-of-social-reproduction

Thursday, February 8

Kimberly Kay Hoang, "Economies of Emotion, Familiarity, Fantasy, and Desire:  Emotional Labor in Ho Chi Minh City's Sex Industry"

Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild”

Supplementary reading:

Elizabeth Bernstein, “Bounded Authenticity and the Commerce of Sex”

Response #4 due Friday, February 9, 11:59 pm.  

Response #4 must consider how Butler’s short story can be interpreted through the lens of at least one of the readings on the relationship between sexism and capitalism.  As in the previous response, you must first elaborate the theoretical insight that is your focus and then proceed to set it to work in your analysis of a particular passage or scene from the short story.

UNIT III:  Fetishism, Ideology and Cultural Production

Week 7

Tuesday, February 1

Marx, selections from Chapter 1, Vol 1 of Capital,  "The Fetishism of the Commodity" (pp. 163-177)--additional pages TBD

Thursday, February 15

Louis Althusser “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses:  Notes Towards an Investigation”

Week 8

Tuesday and Thursday, February 20 and 22:  No class meeting. 

Take time this week to catch up, review readings, or dive into supplementary readings.

Supplementary reading:

Louis Althusser, “A Letter on Art in Reply to Andre Daspre”

For the adventurous, I suggest reading all of Chapter 1 of Capital.  If there is interest, I will convene a group discussion of the entire chapter outside of class time during week 8.

Response #5 due Friday, February 23, 11:59 pm.

There are two options for response #5.  Choose one of the following:  

1.   Choose a particular passage from "the fetishism" section of chapter 1 of Capital and parse it carefully.  Then explain how this passage helps you understand something about your life in contemporary capitalism.  Be as specific as possible.  You may draw from past experience, popular media, or our culture at large. Whatever direction you take, be sure to make a clear connection between your selected passage and your real life example.

2.  Althusser writes about numerous ISAs.  Choose a passage that gives you new insight into how ideology works in and through ideological state apparatuses and parse it carefully.  Then explain how the passage you have selected helps you understand something specific about life experience in capitalism.  You may draw from your own experience, or may explore the experiences of someone close to you. 

Week 9

Tuesday, February 27

Raymond Williams, “Introduction” to Keywords and keyword entries on “Art,” “Class,” and “Literature”   

Thursday, February 29

Raymond Williams, Chapters 6, 8 and 9 from Marxism and Literature

Response # 6 due Friday, March 1, 11:59 pm. 

Response #6 must make an argument for why one word that is in use today and that we hear in conversation counts as a keyword.  Be sure to offer a clear and concise definition of “keyword” before discussing how and why the word you have selected ought to be understood as a keyword.  You may choose to discuss dominant, residual, or emergent uses of your keyword and to locate the struggle amongst these uses.

(You can access the OED via UW Libraries here: https://guides.lib.uw.edu/research/encydict) 

Week 10

Tuesday, March 5 

Bong Joon-Ho dir.  Parasite

The film is available on Netflix and other platforms.  It is your responsibility to view the film prior to class and to take viewing notes for reference during class discussion.

Supplementary reading:

Criss Moon & Julie Moon, "'Parasite' and the Plurality of Empire"

Ju-Hyun Park, "Reading Colonialism in 'Parasite'"

Thursday, March 7

Mark Fisher, “Capitalist realism, is there no alternative?”

Response #7, due Monday, March 11, 12-noon

Prompt:

Choose one scene from the film and develop a close reading of this scene that allows you to shed light on the film’s take on life in capitalism. You will want to focus on one or more of the following questions as you develop your reading of your chosen scene:

How does the scene examine the exploitation and oppression of women and/or feminized labor?

How does it comment on racial capitalism?

How does it examine the emotional labor that supports capitalism?

How does it examine the “deep acting” required of care workers?

How does it explore the private space of the home as central to the reproduction of capitalism?

How does it explore the possibility of insurgency? 

How does it examine the social divisions in capitalism?

How does it comment on the role of nature in capitalism?

How does it comment on a future yet to come?

In writing your response you should draw on at least one of the readings we have done this quarter in addition to one chapter by either Raymond Williams or Mark Fisher.  Be sure to explain how the scene you have chosen fits within the arch of the film and adds meaning to it.

Notes on etiquette

This class often deals with politicized material. You do not have to agree with everything we read.  Our collective goal is to treat other people’s ideas with respect and interrogate them with critical rigor. It is important that you come to class each day with an open mind, a sense of humor, and a willingness to discuss a wide range of ideas in respectful dialogue with others. By doing so, we can ensure that this course remains a forum in which we can learn from one another. Language or behavior that is sexist, racist, homophobic, or xenophobic curtails the exchange of ideas and will be confronted on the spot.  

Shift to zoom

We will meet in person in our classroom during our regularly scheduled class time. If, however, circumstances mandate remote learning, we will meet during our regular class time on zoom.  Should zoom be required, I will send an email announcement via canvas with a zoom link.  Please get in the habit of checking your email on Tu/Th mornings by 11 am.  Any shifts to zoom will be announced by that time.

Plagiarism

One of the most common forms of cheating is plagiarism, using another's words or ideas without proper citation or presenting them as if they are your own.  The UW guidelines that define plagiarism apply to information gleaned from the web or generated by AI including ChatGPT. The key to avoiding plagiarism is to show clearly where your own thinking ends and an other's begins. If you consult outside sources (digital, published, or recorded) to spark ideas or formulations included in your response you must explain the nature of your use in a footnote and cite all sources at time you turn in your written work.  Footnotes and/or a bibliography should follow MLA citations guidelines.  Written work that contains plagiarism, however minor, will be reported to the College of Arts and Sciences.

In this class the use of AI, including ChatGPT, in preparation of written work is unacceptable.  Assignments that evidence use of AI, like those that evidence other forms of plagiarism, will receive partial or no credit, at my digression.

More information on plagiarism

https://www.washington.edu/cssc/for-students/academic-misconduct/

https://students.nursing.uw.edu/policies/student-policies/plagiarism/

https://www.northwestern.edu/provost/policies-procedures/academic-integrity/how-to-avoid-plagiarism.html

https://tedfrick.sitehost.iu.edu/plagiarism/

OTHER USEFUL INFORMATION

Email 

Please allow at least 24 hours for my response to your email. Understand that I may be unable to respond to email after 5 p.m. on weekdays and will not respond to email over the weekend.  Also note that during Week 8 email response times may be slower than usual.

Disability accommodation

If you require accommodation, do not hesitate to talk to me so that I can work with the UW Disability Resource for Students (DRS) to provide the accommodation that you need for your best learning experience. More information about accommodation may be found at http://www.washington.edu/students/drs/ 

Religious accommodation

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/  Accommodations must be requested in advance of an absence from class. https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious- accommodations-request/

Professor Weinbaum’s guidelines for writing responses

Preparation

1. Read carefully and make marginal notes as you go. Underline important passages AND jot down ideas and/or questions in the margin as they arise.
2. Examine marginal notes after completing the reading.  Write ideas in your notebook for use in class and in writing responses.
3. Summarize in short sentences 3-5 of the main ideas you have found in the reading in your notebook BEFORE sitting down to write a response paper.

Writing your response

There are a range of possible approaches to writing a response papers.  Over the quarter try out the different approaches outlined below.  Everyone should try out at least three approaches—noting that these approaches necessarily overlap.  Also note that some prompts specify the type of response you need to write.

Questions about new ideas

This kind of response paper focuses on a new, intriguing, and/or perplexing idea that arose in the reading or in class.  What stood out to you as something you had not thought about prior? First describe this idea, then explain what was interesting, important, or consequential about it in relation to a specific passage from the reading in question.  Parse the passage you have chosen carefully as you bring forward your question about it.

Questions about argument

If you think you have understood a text’s overall argument (and thus the argument’s various parts), give a précis of the argument in a paragraph or two.  Then, raise a question about the overall argument or a particular part of it. What do you want to take away from this argument for future use or for further contemplation and why?  Alternatively, are there aspects of the argument that are counter-intuitive or that seem contradictory?  Carefully identify and then describe seeming contradictions or trouble spots, and explain how and why they are instructive or illuminating.  Do not critique for the sake of being critical!

Questions about politics and philosophy

What is at stake for the author in writing this text as s/he has?  What’s the text’s principal purpose?  Who is the implied audience of this text? What impact is this text meant to have on its audience?  What is your personal response to this text’s main political or philosophical project?  How does this text speak to our discussions in class and in what ways? How does this text speak to our political moment? 

Questions about form and style

Can you discern a relationship between the form in which an argument is made and its meaning?  How does the form of the text (is it theoretical, historical, social scientific, polemical, fictional, fantastical, etc...) capture, embody, or enhance its meaning? What sort of stylistic choices (dialect, language, syntax, mis en scene etc…) has the author or director made?  How have these choices informed or shaped our discussion of this text?  How have these choices impacted your ideas as the “reader” of this text?

Setting a text to work in the world

If our discussion of a particular reading seems directly relevant to something that is going on in y/our world, explain the connection fully.  Then pull out a specific passage from the text that resonates for you and describe how and why it resonates in this particular moment/situation/context.  How exactly has this passage allowed you to think about y/our world in a new or different way than you might have previously? 

Comparative questions

If you feel you have a firm grasp on two texts and an idea about how they resonate with or depart from each other, place them into “dialogue.”  A comparative response focuses on overlaps and differences, on how one text builds upon, supplements, comments upon, or reveals gaps in the other.  If two texts resonate in an interesting way explain how this is so. If two texts seem at odds, explore the tension between them.  Explore relationships between texts that seem significant to you, and explain why they are significant or meaningful.