Globalization and the Politics of Culture: An Interview with (original) (raw)

What is the role of culture in an era of globalization? This is one of the questions that animates the work of Imre Szeman, founder of the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies and Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta. Szeman's thinking combines a strong appreciation of the critical potential of cultural studies work with an under standing of the importance of Marxist theory, especially at this critical moment in human history. With the end of national cul ture as a framework for progress in the arts, culture becomes in creasingly tied to the new master narrative, he says, of the trau mas of globalization. As culture's agenda is increasingly set by the operations of global capital, it becomes imperative, he ar gues, to create an imaginative vocabulary that can challenge biocapitalism's fantasy of endless accumulation. While global ization democratizes the imagination, creating new identities and new public spheres, for Szeman, it simultaneously shifts our focus away from culture-the predominant aesthetic and representational condition of postmodernism-towards macrop olitical issues. In this context, he says, class struggle reasserts itself, political economy returns with a vengeance, and even the immanent aesthetic of workerist theory seems to pale in com parison with the transcendent mediation of radical contestation.

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact