Ideology and Inscription: ‘Cultural Studies’ after Benjamin, De Man, and Bakhtin

Tom Cohen questions the way history, ideology and politics are invoked in contemporary cultural studies. Enlisting the work of three seminal figures in literary theory–Walter Benjamin, Paul de Man, and M. Bakhtin–Cohen argues for a new politics of memory that moves beyond what he sees as our current paralyzing preoccupation with the present, and also for a new approach to the reading and analysis of cultural texts that breaks with the mimetic premises of traditional criticism.