{"id":1667,"date":"2024-07-11T05:26:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T05:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/?page_id=1667"},"modified":"2026-08-17T11:52:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T11:52:33","slug":"clit2105-marxism-critical-theory-and-real-cultural-studies","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/clit2105-marxism-critical-theory-and-real-cultural-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"CLIT2105: Marxism, critical theory, and real cultural studies"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 Credits| Prof. Daniel VUKOVICH<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This course surveys texts, concepts, and problems within the closely related fields of Marxist and critical theory. In the final section of the course it then examines cultural studies (in the Williams-Hall or ‘Birmingham’ tradition) not as a substitute for critical or Marxist theory but as the best way to use it via the analysis of culture and society. Though it is logically, and certainly was historically connected to socialism and communism, Marxism here will not be studied as a specific or as a universal political blueprint, nor in terms of contemporary activism. For our purposes, Marxism is best understood as a discourse in the Foucauldian sense (we will unpack this term in due course). Critical theory is either simply a part of this discourse or exists as an intellectual commentary and argument alongside and, at times, against it.<\/p>\n

We will study Marxist and critical theory as a diverse and sometimes contentious set of texts, concepts, interlocutors, and critics that turn upon the analysis of capitalism, modernity, class, inequality and power in society, and globalization. We want to understand the very considerable explanatory power of Marxist and critical theory; but also its limits or gaps. We will read some of its notable \u2018challengers\u2019 or rivals in explanatory power and semantic richness. In this term, these will be psychonalysis and, time permitting, anti-liberal conservatism. We\u2019ll read Marx (and Engels), the Frankfurt School (Adorno and Horkheimer), Michel Foucault, Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, and Sigmund Freud (with Louis Althusser), as well as Stuart Hall and Raymond Williams and Fredric Jameson. Cultural studies, via classic works within the field, will be presented as a way to combine textual with contextual criticism via the \u201cdetour through theory.\u201d The aim of cultural studies is not to produce new theory or merely to illustrate the Truth of X or Y thinker or concept. Cultural studies is not simply ‘applied theory’ (though it does put theory to work). It aims instead to produce knowledge (perhaps useful, perhaps Utopian) about significant problems and dynamics in a real, actually existing culture and society, after Marx.<\/p>\n

Assessment: 100% coursework.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 Credits| Prof. Daniel VUKOVICH This course surveys texts, concepts, and problems within the closely related fields of Marxist and critical theory. In the final section of the course it then examines cultural studies (in the Williams-Hall or ‘Birmingham’ tradition) not as a substitute for critical or Marxist theory but as the best way to … <\/p>\n

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