Thanks, guys.
GlynG wrote:
Are you familiar with the critical work of Adorno by any chance? I wrote one of my masters essays on him, he's a challenging writer but a fascinating and intelligent one.
I'm not big on the Frankfurt School. What little I've read from them seems like they were sort of apologists for Marx, trying to explain why his theories didn't manifest as predicted. Personally, I think Marx is terrible and I am amazed that any educated human ever thought his work was worth reading. Neo-marxist refinement seems a bit like a waste of time to me.
The only element of traditional "marxist" lit theory I really like is the examination of economic pressure on the conditions of production.
The stuff I like are the guys that deal with a wide range of psychological motivations outside of Marxism's "all capital, all the time." Baudrillard's object value system, Bourdieu's "field" and symbolic capital, and so on. Basically, all the stuff that takes into account the social constructions of "value" beyond monetary considerations. Personally, I think of these types of concepts as the core of "post marxism" but since there's really no clear definition of the term, I probably shouldn't use it that way.
