This volume's conceptualization of cultural developments through the framework of 'capitalist realism' will be welcomed by many who seek after the social relevance of literature at a time when the humanities are disappearing (as a result of the very fiscal austerity that the volume calls out) and when we seem to have surrendered the methodological tools for doing so.
Colleen ... Read moreLye, associate professor of English, University of California, Berkeley At a time when, as Jameson famously put it, 'it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, ' we lose our ability to distinguish capitalism from reality itself. The essays gathered here perform the vital service of restoring capitalism to visibility, enabling us to see how it shapes our literary representations of the ordinary and the everyday, how it guides contemporary narratives of 'real life.' This is high-caliber, committed criticism, asserting once more the power and usefulness of Marxist method in literary studies.
James F. English, University of Pennsylvania Show Less