A Brief Exploration On Fredric Jameson's Utopian Thoughts

Frederic Jameson is a famous contemporary American Neo-Marxist critic and cultural theorist. Taking his utopian thoughts as the research object, this thesis discusses their present situation and future development. The study locates Jameson's utopian thoughts in the general history of utopian thoughts and in the Western Marxist tradition of utopianism, and meanwhile defines their position in relation to his rich and sophisticated discourse system, aiming to give a thorough investigation of his utopian thoughts from a multidimensional perspective and through dialectical thinking.The priority and superiority of utopian vision and desire to political practice is Jameson's conclusion after long-term contemplation over the utopia issue. Adopting utopian thoughts as an approach to study the postmodern society is a distinctive feature of Jameson's postmodern study and is his contribution to and criticism of postmodern theory. The ultimate goal of his utopian thoughts is to reestablish the utopian vision that is on the decline in the postmodern society and reconstruct a prospect of the future of the proletariat. Utopia, in Jameson's discourse, not only possesses traditional connotations of the concept, such as idealization, future orientation and function of criticism, but goes further to highlight its realistic significance and affirmative value.The thesis consists of the introduction, the main body,which is divided into three chapters, and the conclusion.In the introduction, reasons for choosing Jameson's utopian thoughts as the research topic are explained, and after an analysis of the domestic and overseas research status,the significance and the purpose of this study are presented.Chapter One provides the historical background for our systematic investigation of Jameson's utopian thoughts. Through sourcing the etymological origin and tracing the development of meaning of the concept "utopia", it is found that the connotation of"utopia" has undergone a changing process historically, from a static state to a dynamic one, from a spatial presence to a temporal one, from a unitary entity to a diverse one, and of an interweaving of affirmation and negation. In terms of historic phase and intellectual context, Jameson's utopian thoughts should be included in the utopian thoughts of the postmodern society, though there is essential difference between his utopian thoughts and the trend of quasi utopian thoughts. Jameson's "utopia" is not a representation of another social form in the future, but a possibility and necessity to envision the future.Chapter Two discusses the present situation of Jameson's utopian thoughts and, in the intellectual history of the decline and rejuvenation of utopian thoughts and in the contemporary social context, evaluates his contribution to the development of utopian thoughts. According to Jameson, late capitalism is the essential cause of the global downfall of utopian thoughts, so there must be effective resistance to the attack launched on utopian thoughts by theories of the end of ideology and the end of history. Jameson proposes a strategy to rebuild the hope on utopia, namely converting the content of utopia to specific forms that carry such content and seeking theoretical support for the revival of utopian thoughts in a roundabout way by using the logical paradoxes of anti-utopianism.Therefore, the postmodern "utopia" in Jameson's discourse is compatible with"anti-utopia". The core of utopia is an expression of human desire in the field of social life and the essence of utopian thoughts is the envisioning of an idealized collective relationship. Utopia is a special manifestation of the "political unconscious". As for the rejuvenation of utopian thoughts, Jameson provides three suggestions: first, inspiring a new capability for utopian vision is the basis of reestablishing contemporary utopian thoughts; second,study of the form of utopia requires the simultaneous study of the psychodynamics and cliodynamics behind the production of the form; third, insisting on the political dimension of utopian thoughts and adopting the action strategy of anti-anti-utopianism can gradually achieve the political efficacy of utopian thoughts.In Chapter Three, the key aspects of Jameson's utopian thoughts are examined and illustrated on the theoretical level,and then the distinctive features of Jameson's utopian thoughts are determined and an overall map of his utopian thoughts is sketched. To begin with, after an overview, Jameson's utopian thoughts could be defined as anti-anti-utopianism. The three key words in grasping his utopian thoughts are identified,namely "totality", totalization and ideology. And the relation of these three key words to Jameson's utopian thoughts is to be elaborated. First, "totality" necessarily is utopian.Without the utopian dimension, "totality" would lose its capacity for movement, change and development. Meanwhile,Jameson's utopia cannot be other than "totality",for utopia is not a perpetual entity, but a changing process that continually approaches"totality". Second, utopia signifies the political orientation of Jameson's thought of totalization. In Jameson's vision of criticism and research methods,totalization and utopia are reciprocally definitive. In the confrontation of contemporary Marxism and post-structuralism and postmodernism, anti-totalization and anti-utopian thought are closely linked together. Third, In Jameson's Neo-Marxist hermeneutics, the dialectics between ideology and utopia is of considerable importance to the future development of utopian thoughts. In Jameson's construction of dialectical critical theory, he put forward a double hermeneutics that combines affirmation and negation, and his discovery and illustration of utopian factors in literary works facilitates the establishment of a new critical approach, namely utopian criticism.The conclusion part gives a theoretical summary of Jameson's utopian thoughts and points out that Jameson's utopian thoughts are heterogeneous and multidimensional entity and are still unfinished. Taking the question and doubt of Jameson's thought by Richard Rorty,an American philosopher of Neo-Pragmatism, and Amelia Jones,a postmodern artistic critic, as an example, the thesis introduces the debate brought about by Jameson's utopian thoughts and presents the theoretical interrogation it encounters in contemporary multiple discourses. Through clarifying the views of various parties, the study presents a theoretical defense of Jameson's utopian thoughts and provides some remarks and reflections as well.