Mimesis, Expression, Construction: Fredric Jamesons Seminar on Aesthetic Theory

Transcribed and edited from audio recordings taken by Octavian Esanu of the original seminar at Duke University in 2003, Mimesis, Expression, Construction reproduces Jameson and his students' engagement with Aesthetic Theory, one of the most influential theories of modernist aesthetics.

The first and only published record of Jameson's teaching and pedagogic style, the seminar delves into modern and modernist aesthetics through the perspectives of Kant, Hegel, Freud, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche
Benjamin and other members of the Frankfurt School
the literary works of Thomas Mann and Samuel Beckett
the music of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg
the films of Chaplin, Vertov and Eisenstein
the aesthetic implications of psychoanalysis and biblical exegesis
classical music
and more.

Presented in the format of a play, with stage setting, student interruptions and exchanges, interjections, auditory noises, and ambient sounds, and complemented with scans of students' notes, Mimesis, Expression, Construction is a groundbreaking addition to the work of one of the greatest modern cultural critics.