Dialectical criticism of superstructures shifts from causal point-field analysis to homology between two continua
Evidence
Thus the full-scale study of superstructures, the construction of the historical trope, not to lyrical but rather to extended and epic proportions, presupposes a transcendence of the atomistic nature of the cultural term: it is essentially the difference between the juxtaposition of an individual novel against its socio-economic background, and the history of the novel seen against this same background. In effect, at this point a relationship which was that of form to background, of point to field, gives place to the superposition of two fields, two series, two continua; the language of causality gives way to that of analogy or homology, of parallelism. … Thus it turns out that as a marketable commodity on the spiritual level, the nineteenth-century novel may also be said to have known its version of a stage of “primitive accumulation of capital”: the names of Scott and Balzac may be associated with this initial stockpiling of social and anecdotal raw material for processing and ultimate transformation into marketable, that is to say narratable, shapes and forms. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 44
Categorization
- XREF: This is the methodological core of mediation/totalization that Jameson lays out far more fully in ‘The Political Unconscious’; also traces directly to Lukács’s totality and the homology method inherited from Goldmann. — connects to: Extended sociological study converts causality into homology and parallelism; Postmodern hyperspace emerges from tension between two distinct spatial structures; Base and superstructure relate through non-immediate, relative autonomy rather than direct correspondence — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 509 (+4 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: The shift from ‘point to field’ causality to the superposition of two fields/series is the heart of the dialectical method for cultural analysis — the single most nameable move in Jameson’s entire project.
Broader Connections
- Dialectical criticism translates between formal and content-related terminology
#expands(0.80) - Non-reductionist superstructural theory rests on the concept of articulation
#expands(0.78) - Postmodern hyperspace emerges from tension between two distinct spatial structures
#expands(0.75) - Dialectical analysis begins by isolating key factors from the historical continuum
#expands(0.75) - Base and superstructure relate through non-immediate, relative autonomy rather than direct correspondence
#expands(0.72) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 509 - Dialectical criticism unites category-isolation with diachronic sequencing.
#expands(0.72) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 659