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NEW FROM ROUTLEDGE 2026

'Capital' as Literature: Marx Against Himself



’CAPITAL’ AS LITERATURE: MARX AGAINST HIMSELF


Studies of Marx, particularly of his masterwork Capital (1867), are as a rule tutelary—they attempt to explain him. Even literary readers of Marx, from Raymond Williams to Fredric Jameson, seek to secure Marxist tenets by means of Marxian style. ‘Capital’ as Literature: Marx Against Himself departs from this tradition by reading Capital as literary in its own right rather than as political economy with style as its filigree rather than its focus. Here, Marx emerges in a different light. If literature is writing that calls whatever is settled into question, then Marx's writing is literature, not because of its revolutionary program, but because Marx's rhetoric, particularly its key trope of chiasmus, undoes the coherence of the notions it propounds, especially in Capital. Marx's chiasmatic style turns Capital into a mise en abyme and Marx's enterprise into an example of what it describes rather than its foil or antidote: the structure of capital itself. Capital, like capital, is a self-begetting production machine whose fungibility as a form is one and the same with the money economy it unravels. ‘Capital’ as Literature: Marx Against Himself shows how this irony unfolds and what the implications are for epistemology, cultural studies, and literary criticism.




ALSO FROM ROUTLEDGE 2022

Criticism After Theory from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf



CRITICISM AFTER THEORY FROM SHAKESPEARE TO VIRIGINIA WOOLF

The argument of this book is a simple one: that criticism after theory is a single movement of thought defined by synthesis and continuity rather than by conflict and change. The most influential figures in criticism since Saussure—Bakhtin, Derrida, and Foucault—are wholly consistent with Saussure's foundational Course in General Linguistics (1916) no matter the traditions of complaint that have followed in Saussure's wake from Bakhtin forward. These complaints vitiate—despite themselves and often hilariously so—the misconceptions that have made cottage industries out of quarrels with Saussurean semiology that are based on notions of Saussure that are incorrect. The materialist criticism dominant today is actually dependent upon on the legacy of a presumably formalist structuralism rather than a step beyond it. New Historicism, postcolonialism, gender studies, environmental criticism, archive studies, even shared and surface reading are, like deconstruction, the by-products of Saussure's structuralism, not its foils. Saussure's sign is sensory and concrete. Language and materiality are not distinct but one and the same—history, society, the psychological subject, even the environment are systems of signs, material archives read and reread by futures that produce the past after the fact. Without Saussure, contemporary criticism would have no identifiable or effective source. The book begins with chapters on Saussure and Derrida, Bakhtin and Shakespeare, and Freud and Foucault followed by chapters on Victorian and American fiction, D.H. Lawrence and modern poetry, Virginia Woolf and Melanie Klein, and the historicist tropology of psychoanalysis. It concludes with a coda in life writing on the author's epileptic disability.




Portuguese translation of THE MYTH OF POPULAR CULTURE (Blackwell Manifestos, 2010) now available from Tinta Negra (Rio de Janeiro, 2015)



OS MITOS DA CULTURA POP: DE DANTE A DYLAN

O renomado crítico cultural americano Perry Meisel detona as noções convencionais sobre a divisão entre “alta” e “baixa” cultura.

O autor transita pela provocante teoria de que a cultura pop experimentou ritmos dialéticos. A hábil análise que o livro apresenta de três tradições culturais duradouras – o romance norte-americano, Hollywood, e o rock inglês e americano – nos leva a um ciclo histórico da cultura pop que tem Dante como ponto de partida e revisita ícones como Wahrol, Melville, Hemingway, Twain, Eisenstein, Benjamin, Scorsese e Sinatra.




THE MYTH OF POPULAR CULTURE: FROM DANTE TO DYLAN

The Myth of Popular Culture discusses the dialectic of "highbrow" and "lowbrow" in popular culture through an examination of literature, film, and popular music. With topics ranging from John Keats to John Ford, the book responds to Adorno's theory that popular culture is not dialectical by showing that it is.

Available as eBooks

COURSE IN GENERAL LINGUISTICS. Trans. Wade Baskin. Co-ed. with Haun Saussy. By Ferdinand de Saussure (Columbia University Press, 2011)

THE MYTH OF POPULAR CULTURE: FROM DANTE TO DYLAN
(Blackwell Manifestos, 2010)

THE LITERARY FREUD (Routledge, 2007)

THE COWBOY AND THE DANDY: CROSSING OVER FROM ROMANTICISM TO ROCK AND ROLL (Oxford University Press, 1998)

FREUD: A COLLECTION OF CRITICAL ESSAYS (Prentice-Hall, 1981)




9/1/10

Pazz & Jop Product Report 1978

"Each critic votes for between zero and 10 'yea' records per month and awards each one 10 (masterpiece), 8, 7 (recommended purchase), 5 (borderline), 3, 2, or 1 (shades of listenable) votes."

Perry Meisel's votes:

January 2, 1978:

YEA: Boz Scaggs: 'Down Two, Then Left' (Columbia) 7; Merle Haggard: 'A Working Man Can't Get Nowhere Today' (Capitol) 5; Eric Gale: 'Multiplication' (Columbia) 5; 'Stan Getz Presents Jimmy Rowles: The Peacocks' (Columbia) 5; James Talley: 'Ain't It Somethin' ' (Capitol) 5; Steve Khan: 'Tightrope' (Columbia/Tappan Zee) 3; Odyssesy: 'Rare Gems' (Casablanca) 3.

February 6, 1978:

YEA: Joe Tex: 'Rub Down' (Epic) 7; Kool and the Gang: 'The Force' (De-Lite) 5; Art Garfunkel: 'Watermark' (Columbia) 3; Muddy Waters: 'I'm Ready' (Blue Sky) 3; Elvis Costello: 'My Aim is True' (Columbia) 2; Bette Midler: 'Broken Blosssoms' (Atlantic) 1.

March 6, 1978:

YEA: 'The Best of Jerry Lee Lewis, Volume II' (Mercury) 8; Elvin Bishop: 'Raisin' Hell' (Capricorn) 7; Fenton Robinson; 'Hear Some Blues Downstairs' (Alligator) 5; Vibrators: 'Pure Mania' (Columbia) 5; Muddy Waters: 'I'm Ready' (Blue Sky) 5; Johnny Rivers: 'Outside Help '(Soul City) 3.
NAY: Manhattan Transfer, 'Pastiche' (Atlantic) -2.

April 3, 1978:

YEA: Allen Toussaint: 'Motion' (Warner Bros.) 7; Original Texas Playboys: 'Live and Kickin' ' (Capitol) 7; Maria Muldaur: 'Southern Winds' (Warner Bros.) 5; Average White Band: 'Warmer Communications' (Atlantic) 5; Little Feat: 'Waiting for Columbus' (Warner Bros.) 3; 'Foster Sylvers' (Capitol) 3; NRBQ: 'At Yankee Stadium' (Mercury) 3; Delbert McClinton: 'Second Wind' (Capricorn) 3; Dexter Wansel: 'Voyager' (Philadelphia International) 2; Bobby Womack: 'Pieces' (Columbia) 2.

May 1, 1978:

YEA: Ramones: 'Rocket to Russia' (Sire) 8; 'Ramones Leave Home,' (Sire) 7; 'Ramones' (Sire) 7; Elvis Costello: 'This Year's Model' (Columbia) 5; 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols' (Warner Bros.) 3; Tower of Power: 'We Came to Play' (Columbia) 3; Tower of Power: 'We Came to Play' (Columbia) 3; 'Cornell Dupree's Saturday Night Fever' (Versatile) 2.

June 5, 1978:

YEA: Elvis Costello: 'This Year's Model' (Columbia) 8; The Band: 'The Last Waltz' (Warner Bros.) 8; 'Ellen McIlwaine' (United Artists) 7; Brian Auger and Julie Tippetts: 'Encore' (Warner Bros.) 7; Wings: 'London Town' (Capitol) 5; Aretha Franklin: Almighty Fire' (Atlantic) 5; Willie Nelson: 'Stardust' (Columbia) 3; Edie Hinton: 'Very Extremely Dangerous' (Capricorn) 3; Bonnie Bramlett: 'Memories' (Capricorn) 3.

July 3, 1978:

YEA: Charlie Parker: 'The Very Best of Bird' (Warner Bros.) 10; Koko Taylor: 'The Earthshaker' (Alligator) 8; Graham Parker & the Rumour: 'The Parkerilla' (Mercury) 7; Freddie Hubbard: 'Super Blue' (Columbia) 7; Rolling Stones: 'Some Girls' (Rolling Stones) 5; Bruce Springsteen: 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' (Columbia) 5; Dave Mason: 'Marlposa de Oro' (Columbia) 3; David Sanborn: 'Heart to Heart' (Warner Bros.) 3; George Duke: 'Don't Let Go' (Epic) 2; Wendy Waldman: 'Strange Company' (Warner Bros.) 2.
NAY: Ry Cooder: 'Jazz' (Warner Bros.) - 3; John McLaughlin: 'Electric Guitarist' (Columbia) - 3.

August 7, 1978:

YEA: Bob Dylan: 'Street-Legal' (Columbia) 10; 'Carlene Carter' (Warner Bros.) 7; Merle Haggard: 'Eleven Winners' (Capitol) 7; Cheap Trick: 'Heaven Tonight' (Epic) 5; Teddy Penergrass: 'Life in a Song Worth Singing' (Philadelphia International) 5; 'Larry Carlton' (Warner Bros.) 5; Rahsaan Roland Kirk: 'Boogie-Woogie Stringalong for Real' (Warner Bros.) 5; 'DMZ' (Sire) 3; Billy Cobham/Steve Kahn/Tom Scott/Alfonso-Johnson: 'Alivemutherforya' (Columbia) 3; John Abercrombie/Dave Holland/Jack DeJohnette: 'Gateway 2' (ECM) 2.

September 4, 1978:

YEA: 'David Gilmour' (Columbia) 8; Screamin' Jay Hawkins: 'I Put a Spell on You' (Versatile) 8; Saints: 'Eternally Yours' (Sire) 7; Jesse Winchester: 'A Touch on the Rainy Side' (Bearsville) 7; Criminals: 'The Kids Are Back' (Sing Sing single) 7; Debby Boone: 'Midstream' (Warner Bros.) 5; Bill Chinnock: 'Badlands' (Atlantic) 3; Ohio Players: 'Jass-Ay-Lay-Dee' (Mercury) 3; Jim Krueger: 'Sweet Salvation' (Columbia) 3; 'The Writers' (Columbia) 2.

October 9, 1978:

YEA: 'The Pop' (Automatic) 7; Talking Heads: 'More Songs About Buildings and Food' (Sire) 7; Willie Nelson: 'Face of a Fighter' (Lone Star) 7; Zwol: 'New York City' (EMI/America single) 5; Frankie Valli is the Word' (Warner Bros.) 5; City Boy: 'Book Early' (Mercury) 3; Dixie Dregs: 'What If' (Capricorn) 2; Billy Cobham: 'Simplicity of Expression-Aptness of Thought' (Columbia) 2.

November 6, 1978:

YEA: Dexter Gordon: 'Manhattan Symphonie' (Columbia) 8; Pete Christlieb/Wayne Marsh Quintent: 'Apogee' (Warner Bros.) 8; Son Seals: 'Live and Burning' (Alligator) 7; Bryan Ferry: 'The Bride Stripped Bare' (Atlantic) 7; Carl Perkins: 'Ol' Blue Suede is Back' (Jet) 5; 'The Very Best of Dave Mason' (ABC) 5; Tom Scott: 'Intimate Strangers' (Columbia) 3; Boston: 'Don't Look Back' (Epic) 3; Pierce Arrow: 'Pity the Rich' (Columbia) 2.

December 4, 1978:

YEA: The Clash: 'Give 'Em Enough Rope' (Epic) 8; Ramones: 'Road to Ruin' (Sire) 8; 'Bob Mover' (Vanguard) 7; Southside Johnny & the Asbury Dukes: 'Hearts of Stone' (Epic) 7;
Stan Getz: 'Another World' (Columbia) 7; Billy Swann: 'At His Best' (Monument) 7; Elvin Bishop: 'Hog Heaven' (Capricorn) 5; Kool and the Gang: 'Everybody's Dancin' (De-Lite) 5.



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