Smiley Face - Jameson

Jameson's article confronts many aspects of culture with references to previous theorists covered in class. As a whole, the article confronts the cultural dominance of postmodernism in various aspects of society and culture.

"The new social formation in question no longer obeys the laws of classical capitalism, namely the primacy of industrial production and the omnipresence of class struggle" (484)
This quote struck me most since it strongly refers to Marx and his views on class struggle in society. The 'new social formation' refers to the emergence of the middle class, upper-middle and lower-middle classes Victorian era, the first society holding modern values. What in fact makes the Victorians such an accessible time period was that fact that they were faced with issues that are still being faced today. Before the presence of multiple classes, there were only two: the rich and the poor. The Victorians were the first industrial culture in the world, which was the main reason that Marx traveled to England and study the new phenomenon of culture. From the new social construction in society came the middle classes' growing power over society. Jameson captures the change between social orders that are still present in our society today.

" 'Intertextuality' as a deliberate, built-in feature of the aesthetic effect, and as the operator of a new connotation of 'pastness' and pseudo-historical depth, in which the history of aesthetic styles displaces 'real' history" (495)
Here Jameson is referring to the work of Macherey and his concept of individual experience determining the way that one decodes text. In regards to Jameson's work, he sees the function of intertextuality as a way of finding beauty and history. This quote also reminds me notion of nostalgia created for a place or a time period that one hasn't personally traveled to or lived in. Although this nostalgia comes from media, Jameson suggests that the nostalgia comes from the individual.