The Politics of Nostalgia

Abstract

This paper discusses issues raised in Aijaz Ahmad's recent work, In Theory. Ahmad's work is centred on three critical essays on Edward Said, Salman Rushdie and Fredric Jameson who have a common ideological affiliation, in his view, to a new kind of radicalism. This derives its inspiration from postmodernist thinking in varying forms, substituting the marxist idea of belongingness by a radical form of unbelonging. This paper argues that while many of Ahmad's critical observations are perceptive, his general approach is marred by an unwillingness to extend criticism to his own premises. It is highly political, but its politics is one of nostalgia.

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