Abstract
One of Louis Pierre Althusser's contributions to Marxism was to clarify the concept of the political "masses", affirming that the masses of all classes united in struggle functioned as both the departure of action and the end of theory. He thus loomed as a unique presence in the intellectual development of Western Marxism. From the perspective of literary criticism, this paper focuses on Althusser's re-positioning of issues such as author, form and defamiliarization in contemporary critical theory, and on his using the distanciation theory to explicate howideological practice surrounding mass movement intervenes reality and functions in it. The paper tries to clarify the following issues: the historical context of Althusser's concept of the masses, the content of the theoretical contestation in Althusser's literary criticism, the positive effect of art neuveau as he found, and the organic connection in the overall philosophical-artistic practice.
First Page
201
Last Page
209
Recommended Citation
Huo, Ju. 2020. "Distanciation and Artistic Practice: How the Concept of Masses Was Constructed in Althusser's Literary Criticism." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 40, (3): pp.201-209. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol40/iss3/7
