The Masses Make History’
On Jameson’s Allegory and Ideology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12673248 |
|---|---|
| Authors | B Noys (0000-0001-6105-3665, Professor of Critical Theory, Department of Humanities, University of Chichester Chichester UK, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 134-150 |
| Publication date | 2020-12-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Historical Materialism (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1465-4466 • E-ISSN: 1569-206X |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/1569206x-12342000 |
| OpenAlex | W3114546136 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
This essay responds to Frederic Jameson’s Allegory and Ideology by arguing that this book is centrally concerned with the masses. By developing Jameson’s own model of allegorical reading, the pressure of the masses on the text is explored. This is demonstrated through a reading of Albert Camus’s The Plague , Jameson’s central example of ‘bad’ allegory. While this novel is ‘bad’ for implying a one-to-one allegorical relationship between the plague infection and the Occupation of France during World War Two, or to the human condition, a reading of the text as biopolitical allegory reveals the complex presence of the masses. Finally, this response considers the ‘immortality’ of the masses as the utopian moment traced within Allegory and Ideology
Allegory · Ancient history · Art · Ideology · Immortality · Linguistics · Literature · Plague (disease · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Decadence, Literature, and Society · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
Rabelais and his world
Discipline and Punish
Discipline and Punish
The Jargon of Authenticity
The Cheese and the Worms. The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller
Raymond Chandler
Spinoza, the Anti-Orwell
The Jargon of Authenticity
Out of Character
Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism
Madness and Civilization
The Political Unconscious
Towards understanding peasant experience
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |