We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The Base and Superstructure Debate in the Hollywood Communist Party.
- Authors
Ceplair, Larry
- Abstract
The base and superstructure concept developed by Marx and Engels has attracted many interpreters over the years. Most of these have focused on what it reveals about the state. But there is also a stream of writers, from Plekhanov to Eagleton, who have been fascinated with its aesthetic dimensions. Only a handful have tried to apply it to creative workers in cultural industries. The most notable attempt was made by a small group of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriters, in the early 1950s. Their debate capped a century of discourse regarding the cultural ramifications of the base-superstructure concept, from its inception by Marx and Engels, through its transmutation by the Russian Marxists, to its use by Marxists and Communists in the United States.
- Subjects
UNITED States; MARX, Karl, 1818-1883; ENGELS, Friedrich, 1820-1895; ECONOMIC determinism; AUTHORS; PLEKHANOV, Georgii Valentinovich, 1856-1918; CULTURAL industries; SCREENWRITERS; MARXIST philosophy; COMMUNISTS
- Publication
Science & Society, 2008, Vol 72, Issue 3, p319
- ISSN
0036-8237
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1521/siso.2008.72.3.319