Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Abstract

Fredric Jameson’s excoriating critique of postmodernism is a seminal work of contemporary cultural theory. Drawing on Ernest Mandel’s tripartite model of capitalist development, Jameson situates postmodernism in what he calls a cultural logic of late capitalism. Characterised by the naturalisation of the market and the reduction of all things to the category of culture, postmodernism expunges a depth model of cultural analysis by promulgating the myth that categories such as class and the unconscious have no explanatory value.