Fall 2025 Public Screening Series: Early Jameson | "How to Adapt to Cultural Change" (2014)

Early Jameson: Film & Theory at the Limits of Culture

Screenings begin at 11:30 AM | Free and open to the public | RSVP @ tania.rispoli@duke.edu | Lunch starts at 11 AM

Hosted by the graduate seminar Early Jameson taught by Ranjana Khanna, this screening series invites the public to engage with film and video works that reflect, refract, and challenge key themes in the intellectual and political trajectory of Fredric Jameson-from Marxism and psychoanalysis to postmodernism, media, and utopia. Each screening will be followed by an informal discussion.
Join us in exploring how Jameson's thinking continues to provoke new questions about ideology, cultural production, and the very possibility of critique today.

This series is part of the Future of Critical Thought.

How to Adapt to Cultural Change
Conversation with Fredric Jameson and Ramón del Castillo
This short documentary centers on a reflective dialogue with Fredric Jameson, tracing his intellectual evolution from his 1950s dissertation on Sartre to his later work on postmodernism, semiotics, and visual media. In conversation with Ramón del Castillo, Jameson reaffirms that the role of the thinker is not to resolve but to pose sharper problems, offering a glimpse into his method, ethos, and enduring cultural insight.