威廉斯与马克思主义文化理论

文化是近年来人文学科关注的焦点,也是文学与美学话语论述的对象。马、恩在创建唯物史观过程中,既确立了文化问题的唯物主义解释原则,把经济和文化区分为基础和上层建筑,但是也强调文化的相对自主性,揭示了文化与政治、经济结构和阶级关系之间更复杂的关系。威廉斯在20世纪中后期的资本主义历史语境中,面对工人阶级文化和大众文化的兴起,建构出文化唯物主义理论,突出文化生产的社会性、物质性。在法兰克福学派的大众文化批判模式之外,提出了大众文化的建设性维度,丰富和发展了历史唯物主义对文化的形态和社会功能的理解。这在今天依然具有深刻启示与借鉴作用。

Williams and Marxist Cultural Theory

Culture is the focus of attention from the humanities and social sciences, and also the target of literary and aesthetic discourse. While dividing economy and culture into foundation and super-structure, Marx and Engels stressed the relative freedom of culture, and discloses the complicated relationship between culture and politics and between economy structure and class relations. Facing the emergence of the working class culture and popular culture, Williams constructed the theory of materialist culture and highlighted the sociality and materiality of cultural production the mid-and later 20th century. He proposed the constructive dimension of popular culture, thus enriching and developing the social materialist understanding of the form and social functions of historical materialism.