Marxism in Culture: Towards a Marxist Literary Theory in Times of Capitalist Realism

Our present predicament is characterised by the emergence of a new mode of capitalism that distinguishes itself from earlier configurations via the intersection, or better, synchronization of base- and super-structural processes. In our present situation, every space outside of capitalism has been dissolved into a global world market, resulting in a new, intensive form of capitalist expansion. Life, reproductive time, and even our imaginary capacities are immersed into the sphere of capital. The structural logic of capital becomes the quintessential, intrinsic drive. Capitalism, as Mark Fisher famously asserts in Capitalist Realism, appears now the ultimate horizon of society. This inherent tendency of capital affects culture, art and the aesthetic in general. We bear witness to the emergence of new forms of production and reception of culture: culture productions appear as trans-medial, rhizomatic and commodified processes within globalised structures. This can, for instance, be observed in the case of Harry Potter and its global networks of fan-fiction, or at the example of hip-hop culture, which fuses performance, lyrics and music into a global genre. My wager is that these and similar developments are effects of the transformations of contemporary capital. Literature becomes synchronic with the processes of capitalist production, not only reproducing its structures within the realm of the literary, but being literally immersed into and affected by these structures. For this reason, I propose to depart from orthodox Marxist literary theories that understand the literary only in terms of reflecting and representing social forms. Instead, in the present of capitalist realism, literature (and culture in a wider sense) is integrated into capitalist production. But this real subsumption of the literary under capital allows us to use literature as a vantage point to inquire into the structures of commodification and the internalization of culture and the social into the machines of production of global capitalism.

Bio

After graduating in Comparative Literature at LMU Munich, Sebastian Schuller who holds a PhD-scholarship of Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes is working on a PhD-thesis on materialist literary theory in the age of globalization at LMU Munich. His fields of research include postcolonial studies, globalization-theory, Hip-Hop-studies, Bert Brecht and the aesthetics of Marxism. Schuller published papers on Brecht and Gisela Elsner (“The Acid of the Materialist Notion of History”, Brecht Yearbook 43/2018), the relationship of Marxism and literary theory, German Hip-Hop and is editor of an anthology on the rise of the Alt-Right in Germany (Die Zeit der Monster. (Ochsenfurt: Kulturmaschinen, 2018).

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Convenors: Matthew Beaumont, Dave Beech, Alan Bradshaw, Warren Carter, Gail Day, Steve Edwards, Larne Abse Gogarty, Esther Leslie, Luisa Lorenza Corna, David Mabb, Antigoni Memou, Andy Murray, Dominic Rahtz, Pete Smith, Peter Thomas, Alberto Toscano, Marina Vishmidt.