Marx, Postmodernism, and Spatial Configurations in Jameson and Lefebvre

Abstract

In her article, "Marx, Postmodernism, and Spatial Configurations in Jameson and Lefebvre," Arina Lungu discusses the connection between Marxist sociology and postmodernist theory. Lungu examines Fredric Jameson's volume Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism under the light of the spatial theory developed in the 1970s by Marxian theoretician Henri Lefebvre. For Jameson, the spatial turn is a consequence of the gap between the limited abilities of the human perceptive apparatus and the unrepresentability of the multinational hyperspace. In Lungu's view, Jameson reaches his definition of "culturally-dominant" sensibility by disregarding the rich body of spatial criticism outside postmodern theory. In contrast, Lefebvre's analysis of urban space points to the Marxist origins of the contemporary interest in space across a range of disciplines and cultural trends, and implicitly casts doubt on Jameson's attempt to define the spatial turn as an original development within postmodernism.