The CU campus, anticipating a stimulating lecture, assembled in Old Main on Thursday to see distinguished guest speaker Fredric Jameson and Cox Family Visiting Scholar.
Jameson’s lecture about “The Aesthetics of Singularity” was held Thursday in Old Main at 5 p.m. and focused on the singularity of arts, politics and the media. Students and faculty members filled Old Main Chapel to its carrying capacity to listen to the well-known author, critic and Marxist political theorist, who was brought to campus by the Comparative Literature Graduate Program.
Jameson is known for his critique on postmodernism. He has had numerous books and articles published on the subject, such as Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic and Late Capitalism.
When speaking about the singularity of art to CU students, Jameson said that the artist was no longer the focus point, but rather the overseers of art.
“In our case maybe we don’t have great artists, but great curators,” Jameson said.
When speaking about singularity in a post human sense, Jameson lightened the mood with a joke.
“Someone once said that we can imagine the end of the world more easily than we can imagine the end of capitalism,” he said.
In regards to modern media, Jameson said that he feels that it lacks substance. He told a story in which an author guessed that by the 21st century movies would only be 15-minutes long, an assumption that Jameson said, in a sense, could be correct.
“Action films today really have no plot, instead they contain minute after minute of action sequences,” Jameson said. “I call this the end of temporality.”
Lacey Smith, a second-year M.A. student in comparative literature, said that she holds Jameson as a mentor in her field of study, and was able to have lunch with the lecturer.
“[Having lunch with Jameson] validated my entire educational career,” Smith said. “Having the opportunity to run your ideas by a living theorist is not an opportunity that a lot of students get.”
Smith said that Jameson is a major influence in her field of study.
“Because people don’t know what we do in our field, it would be the equivalent of the theater department getting Meryl Streep to come and teach them how to act,” Smith said.
Kimberly Meyers, a 24-year-old M.A. in comparative literature, said that she was glad to find that many of the themes brought up in Jameson’s lecture were discussed in her classes.
“I found [the lecture] really related to a couple of classes I’ve been taking recently relating to temporality,” Meyers said.
After Jameson’s lecture, guests in attendance were invited to a reception for further discussion, and possibly meeting the theorist himself.
Jameson will continue his aesthetics lecture series, speaking next in Berkley, California.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Bethany Morris Bethany.morris@colorado.edu.
