The Point Is . . .: On the Four Conditions of Marxist Cultural Studies

This chapter assesses the contribution that Jameson makes to the traditions of Marxist cultural studies by way of a mapping of the contours of the Marxist problematic more generally. I hope ultimately to show how Jameson’s work, more through its examples than its incitements, makes an appeal for contemporary Marxist cultural criticism to “remove the corpse from its mouth” and renew its engagement with what Vaneigem and the Situationists refer to as the “subversiveness of love,” or what I will name here more generally Marxism’sfourthcondition.¹ The concept of the “conditions” of thought is taken from the work of