Duke professor Fredric Jameson has been named as the recipient of the sixth annual Award for Literary Lifetime Scholarly Achievement from the Modern Language Association.
Fredric Jameson, the William A. Lane, Jr. professor of comparative literature and professor of romance studies, is a well-known cultural theorist, literary critic and Marxist scholar. He will receive the award at the Modern Language Association’s annual convention in Seattle, Wash. Jan. 7.
“It’s very gratifying, but the idea of a lifetime achievement is a little depressing,” Jameson said, adding that he is happy to be joining the ranks of other scholars that he admires who have previously won this award.
Jameson served as the first director of the Program in Literature upon its founding in the mid 1980s. Although his research summary is in 19th and 20th century French literature, Jameson frequently teaches courses on Jean-Paul Sartre, Third World novels and cinema, modernism, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud. He also believes that Marxist theory can still be used to understand the world, whether in interpreting modernism and postmodernism or in explaining the financial crisis of 2007—despite others believing the collapse of the Soviet Union disproved the ideology.
Other professors in the literature program believe that the honor is more than warranted.
Ariel Dorfman, Walter Hines Page professor of literature and Latin American studies, said he is delighted, though not surprised, about Jameson’s achievement.
“He’s certainly one of the preeminent scholars of our time and also one of the most widespread [in terms of] interest,” Dorfman said, describing Jameson’s writing as both rootless and restless. “He makes all these works on what seem to be unrelated issues and then shows the connections. That’s a sign of deep knowledge and genius.”
Rey Chow, interim chair of the literature program and Anne Firor Scott professor of literature, said that Jameson has been an influence on her.
“Every book of his is an intellectual event, and he has influenced whole generations of scholars working in the humanities, on topics ranging from literature, French and German philosophy, Marxism, postmodernism, to geopolitical aesthetics, global cinema and more,” Chow wrote in an email Tuesday.
The MLA has honored Jameson before, awarding him the William Riley Parker Prize in 1971 and the James Russell Lodge Prize in 1990. In addition, he has also received the Holberg International Memorial Prize for studying the relationship between social formations and cultural norms, presented to him by the University of Bergen in Norway.
Wahneema Lubiano, associate professor of African and African American studies, has known Jameson for about 25 years through their mutual interest in Marxist theory. She was first referred to Jameson’s works on political consciousness by two of her advisers in graduate school.
“He has an immense reputation,” Lubiano said. “His writing has changed the way we think about numerous subjects from architecture and film to design.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.