Valences of the Dialectic
After half a century exploring dialectical thought, renowned cultural critic Fredric Jameson presents a comprehensive study of a misunderstood yet vital strain in Western philosophy. The dialectic, the concept of the evolution of an idea through conflicts arising from its inherent contradictions, transformed two centuries of Western philosophy. To Hegel, who dominated nineteenth-century thought, it was a metaphysical system. In the works of Marx, the dialectic became a tool for materialist historical analysis.
Jameson brings a theoretical scrutiny to bear on the questions that have arisen in the history of this philosophical tradition, contextualizing the debate in terms of commodification and globalization, and with reference to thinkers such as Rousseau, Lukács, Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, and Althusser. Through rigorous, erudite examination, Valences of the Dialectic charts a movement toward the innovation of a “spatial” dialectic. Jameson presents a new synthesis of thought that revitalizes dialectical thinking for the twenty-first century.
Paperback, 640 pages
ISBN: 9781844674633
November 2010
$29.95 / £16.99
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Other Editions
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Hardback, 625 pages
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ISBN: 9781859848777
November 2009
$49.95 / £29.99
Reviews
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A genuinely monumental work that I expect to be referring to for many years.
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A profound contribution to dialectical thought.
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Not often in American writing since Henry James can there have been a mind displaying at once such tentativeness and force ... The best of Jameson’s work has felt mind-blowing in the way of LSD or mushrooms: here before you is the world you’d always known you were living in, but apprehended as if for the first time in the freshness of its beauty and horror.
Blog
“It's Dialectical!”
Nicholas Brown reviews the "exhilarating new book on the dialectic" by renowned Marxist critic Fredric Jameson. In the review for Mediations, Brown is very clear: Valences of the Dialectic isn't just a book about the dialectic, it's a "profound contribution to dialectical thought."
Visit Mediations to read the review in full.
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by Fredric Jameson
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Brecht and Method
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The Hegel Variations
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The Cultural Turn
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The Modernist Papers
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Archaeologies of the Future
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Late Marxism
A lively and lucid introduction to the work of Theodor Adorno.
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A Singular Modernity
A major new interpretation of the concepts of modernism and modernity.