Culture and Domination

'Culture and Domination' challenges the claim of traditional hermeneutics that culture is a realm of meaning and value set apart from social relations of domination and power. In this forceful critical reassessment of hermeneutics, Marxism, and psychoanalysis, Brenkman focuses on the link between cultural interpretation and social theory. He proposes an alternative hermeneutics that guilds on Marxism and psychoanalysis but departs from some of their most basic premises and concepts.

Brenkman illustrates his interpretive theory through innovative readings of literary texts. In particular, he looks closely at the 'concrete utopia' of William Blake's poetry and the 'aesthetics of male fantasy' in Goethe's 'Sorrows of Young Werther'.