Jameson

1
Jamesons Rhetoric of Otherness and the National
Allegory

• Written by Aijaz Ahmad
• Report Monica 497206077

2
Out line

• Introduction
• Ahmads argument
• Metropolitan language
• Three Worlds Theory

3
Frederic Jameson

• Us scholar
• Marxist
• Postmodernist
• Third World Literature in the Era of
  Multinational Capitalism

Source El talp
4
Frederic Jameson

• Assert that third world literature are mostly
  national allegory. For example, Lu Xuns text
  deal with Chinese society by dramatizing the
  libidinal force of his characters in his sketches
  in Diary of a Maiden, in which individual
  allegorize his/her personal experience. Jameson
  focus on demonstrating the struggle affected by
  both imperialist and colonialist forces when
  third world artist try to construct its national
  culture and national identity.

5
Aijaz Ahmad

• Born in India
• Marxist
• Pakistani citizen
• (Ahmad 566)

Source The Hindu
6
Argument

• Frederic Jameson is my (Ahmad) civilization
  Other (Ahmad566).
• Oppose three worlds theory(Ahmad568)
• Oppose the definition of third world based upon
  its experience of colonialism and
  imperialism(Ahmad568).
• Oppose all the third world literature are
  necessarily national allegory(Ahmad571).

7
Ahmads critical approaches

• Exam
• Binary opposition
• ( First World/ Third World
• Hegels master and slave relation)
• Logic
• Over-generalization

8
I. Metropolitan language

• Jameson neglects that Asian and African
  literature do not adopt single metropolitan
  language.
• Us and European scholars believes in metropolitan
  tradition of literature because of translation
  while it is not the case in Asia and Africa
  therefore, some Hindu literary traditions are
  unknown to foreign scholars(Ahmad566-8).
• Some Asian and African scholars theories are
  over valorized(Ahmad567).
• E.g. Edward SaidOrientalism

9
II. Three Worlds Theory?

• JamesonThree Worlds Theory
• Ahmad responds
• There is no such knowledge of the world which is
  essentially descriptive(568).
• The binary opposition which Jameson constructs
  between a capitalist first world and a pre- or
  non-capitalist third world is empirically
  undergrounded(570).
• E.g. India is a capitalist country (exchanges
  between Department I and Department II industry),
  which is not as Jameson suggested a world that
  based upon experience of colonialism and
  imperialism(568).
• Jameson typified India as the slave in Hegelians
  master and slave relationship.

10
III. Absolute Nationalism?

• The third world should be assessed with its mode
  of production rather than merely experience of
  colonialism.
• Jameson over-valorizes the nationalist ideology
  (nationalism) in third world and the assertion of
  national allegory (cultural production)
  (Ahmad571).
• Jameson neglects social factors (Socialist)
  within third world society and define societies
  merely through intra-national domination(Ahmad571)
  .
• E.g. Irans clerical fascism instead of social
  regeneration.

11
IV. Unitary search?

• Jameson claims that one cannot proceed from the
  premise of a real unity without falling back
  into some general liberal humanistic
  universalism(Ahmad572).
• Ahmad
• What gives the world its unity, then, is not a
  humanistic ideology but the ferocious struggle of
  capital and labor which is now a strictly and
  fundamentally global in character(Ahmad572).

12
IV. Single Narrative?

• Jameson insistence on the relation of otherness
  between the first world and the third world.
• Ahmad
• Jameson de-historicise the global space and the
  struggle between these great motivating forces
  actually taken places (capitalist forces)
  (Ahmad573).
• Jameson assimilates the heterogeneities and
  productivities of our life (the third world? )
  into a single Hegelian metaphor of master/slave
  relation, this theory reduces us into an
  ideal-type(Ahmad573).

13
V. Time

• Ahmad The texts in the third world based upon
  the experience of imperialism and colonialism
  should be assessed with time concern. For
  example, Lu Xuns texts are written around ten
  centuries, which is a pre-capitalism work.
  However, Jameson applies Lu Xuns text to suggest
  the difference between first world and third
  world are primordial and pre-capitalism(Ahmad
  574).
• --here with ten centuries of specifically
  Chinese, which means that Chinese society
  sustain individuals libidinal energy because
  Ahmad assume Chinese suffer this problem for a
  long time.(Lu Xuns texts A Maidens Diary 1918,
  Medicine 1919, and The True Story of Ah Q 1921
  according to Wikpedia)

14
V. Space

• The fallacy of Jamesons text is his insistence
  upon all the third world literature are
  necessarily national allegories by validating
  those third world texts which presents national
  allegories as authentic texts (Jameson 574).
• Jameson suggests that third world is similar to
  pre- or non-capitalist literature through the a
  unity between private and public space because
  capitalist society has the radical split between
  the private and public in Marxism and Form
  (575).

15
V. Collectivity?

• Not nation but collectivity (Ahmad 577).
• Jameson argue that the first world writers
  unconsciously allegorize their works while the
  third world writer allegorize their works
  consciously.
• Ahmad claims that reflection upon collectivity is
  not an exclusive narrative strategy applied by
  third world writers, but also first world writer.
• E.g. Adrieen Rich or Alone with America

16
VI. Non-Canonical

• Jameson Third world literatures conduct relist
  mode and thus have limited subject in the texts.
• Ahmad
• Urdu texts are not available in English.
• Nobel Prize winner. E.g. Salman Rushdie
• Not the single mode of Sherwood Adersons
  realism, now the third world novelist are also in
  the modernist discourse in the US.

17
VII. Urdu literary history

• Printing presses and publisher (Pandit Naval
  Kishore) assist in shaping Urdu literature (Ahmad
  581).
• Subject not exclusively national allegory, but
  also a new kind of bourgeois who was violating
  established social norms and female status
  (Ahmad 583).

18
VIII. Conclusion

• Ahmad Whether to put Jamesons text in the
  first world of his origin(Jameson), the second
  world of his ideology and politics, or the third
  world of his filiations and sympathy?(Ahmad587).
• Ideological condition of the texts production
  are never singular but always several Ahmad587).
• There is a veritable third world within the
  first worlds global postmodernist Ahmad587).
• Within the unity, there are irreconcilable
  struggle of capital and labor(Ahmad588).

19
Comments

• Ahmads essay is well structured, in which he
  correspondingly rejoins to Jamesons statements.
  Besides, Ahmad strategically applies his identity
  card as the most persuasive evidence when he
  contradicts Jamesons viewpoints of contemporary
  situation of third world, and thus the most
  worthy part in Ahmads essay is his description
  about Urdu literature and history. However,
  several Ahmads viewpoints are overlapped in
  different sections. Besides, I have difficulty
  with Ahmads conclusion in insisting that they
  are not each others civilization others, which
  seem to deny the purpose of his own essay stated
  as Jameson is my (Ahmad) civilization
  Other(566) and somehow blur the focus.

20
Questions

• Q1 What is the role of media in postmodern
  literature especially when the difference is
  between the effect of local media and
  international media? Can a nation be a nation
  when it is unknown or possess ambiguous image in
  the viewpoint of other nations?
• Q2 Is globalization in the third and second
  world be viewed as postcolonial texts?
• Text
• What is the idea of world literature?

21
Works Cited

• Ahmad, Aijaz. Jamesons Rhetoric of Otherness
  and the National Allegory. Nation and
  Narration. Ed. Homi Bhabha. NY Routledge, 1990.