‘총체성’과 문화연구의 미래 - 프레드릭 제임슨의 신 광 현주제에 의한 변주

"Totality" and the Future of Cultural Studies

&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper attempts to show that the future of cultural studies depends on the way in which the concept of totality is incorporated in their practices, arguing that cultural studies need to establish the legitimacy of the concept of totality in order to come to terms with the global capitalist system. As an attempt to recuperate "totality" in cultural studies, this paper considers Fredric Jameson&quot;s Marxist hermeneutics, which involves or indeed is predicated on the idea of totality that is arguably the most exhaustive and relentless one in recent theoretical debates.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;After providing a survey of various concepts of totality extended by such theorists as Louis Althusser, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Antony Easthope and Stuart Hall, this paper takes a more detailed look at Jameson&quot;s own concept. More specifically, this paper examines two aspects of Jameson&quot;s theory of totality, discussing his idea of the negativity of totality and his view on the relationship between subject and totality.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Jameson&quot;s idea of the negativity of totality, despite its usefulness in defending the concept of totality from post-structuralist attacks, leads to the view that the totality is beyond a cultural representation. As a result, his idea of negative totality ends up with a preemptive view of culture, theorizing it as being able to grasp the totality only symptomatically, that is only in its failure to do so. In critiquing Jameson&quot;s idea of the negativity of totality, this paper compares it with Georg Luk？cs&quot;s idea of "approximation," which dislodges itself from any kind of positive view of totality yet still approves and even invites tantalizingly more and more artistic representations of totality. This paper also critiques Jameson&quot;s reluctance to theorize the multiple strands and layers of experience that the subject employs when engaged with the totality. By examining the way Jameson uses Jean-Paul Sartre&quot;s text, Search for a Method, this paper illustrates how he is not familiar with respecting the language of subject as much as the language of totality in spite of his claim that Marxism has both as two complimentary codes.