> I mentioned before that years ago
> I read some Jameson and enjoyed it; I did not, however,
> confuse lit-crit with political work.
Lit-crit *is* political work, just on a very different level. The interpretive is the political, but there are all kinds of levels and complexities to politics: most organizing is short-term, issue-based stuff, while lit-crit and theory is where the long-term strategizing, essential research, teaching etc. gets hashed out. Both are important, and neither can function effectively without the other.
As an undergrad, I read Jameson and was enthralled, though I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, and it was only thanks to Jameson's "Marxism and Form" that I ever read Bloch, Sartre, and Adorno when I did. Now I teach my classes this stuff, use Adorno as a guidepost to find my way through the micropolitical thickets, etc. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't had the damn fine luck to have run into Jameson's work when I did. The voyages of class struggle are mysterious indeed...
-- Dennis