Literary Materialisms

Mathias Nilges, St. Francis Xavier University, CanandaEmilio Sauri, University of Massachusetts Boston, USASarah Brouillette, Carleton University, CanadaKevin Floyd, Kent State University, USAPeter Hitchcock, City University of New York, USANicholas Brown, University of Illinois at Chicago, USARoberto Schwarz, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), BrazilBruno Bosteels, Cornell University, USAJason Potts, St. Francis Xavier University, CanadaLeerom Medovoi, Portland State University, USAImre Szeman, University of Alberta, CanadaNeil Larsen, University of California, Davis, USACarolyn Lesjak, Simon Fraser University, CanadaPhillip E. Wegner, University of Florida, USA

• Introduction: Materialism and Literature Revisited; Mathias Nilges and Emilio Sauri PART I: READING AND INTERPRETATION 1. Reading Dialectically; Carolyn Lesjak 2. Marxist Criticism, Then and Now; Imre Szeman 3. Literature, Immanent Critique and the Problem of Standpoint; Neil Larsen 4. The Bio-Political Unconscious: Toward an Eco-Marxist Literary Theory; Leerom Medovoi PART II: THE ONTOLOGY AND FUNCTION OF LITERATURE 5. Work as Art and Art as Life; Sarah Brouillette 6. How to Subsume Difference, or World Reduction in Delany; Kevin Floyd 7. Defining the World; Peter Hitchcock 8. Close Reading and the Market; Nicholas Brown PART III: FORM AND GENRE 9. Form(alism's) Now; Mathias Nilges 10. Objective Form: Reflections on the Dialectic of Roguery; Roberto Schwarz 11. Marxism and Melodrama; Bruno Bosteels 12. Creativity, Character and the Making of the American Middle-Class; Jason Potts 13. The Ends of Culture; or, Late Modernism, Redux; Phillip E. Wegner

"Materialism has always been philosophically problematic, and it never completely coincided with that equally problematic mode called realism. Today, however, it is not only the literary text which can be interrogated for its materialist practice, but also literary criticism and theory itself Few recent collections have been so stimulating in the multiple ways in which they develop these problems and extend their possibilities in all kinds of new dimensions. I have personally found it intellectually productive to return again and again to these essays." - Fredric Jameson, William A. Lane Professor of Comparative Literature and Romance Studies, Duke University, USA