Frederic Jameson, The Prison-House of Language: A Critical Account of Structuralism and Russian Formalism – new edition, Princeton University Press, September 2026

Foreword by Caleb Smith and Paul North (the sample material online appears to be from Marxism and Form instead).

In The Prison-House of Language, Fredric Jameson, one of the most important literary and cultural critics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, provides a thorough historical and philosophical introduction to Structuralism and Russian Formalism. Combining a survey of these influential critical movements and a critique of their methodology, Jameson lays bare their presuppositions, questioning whether the methods of Saussurean linguistics can adequately capture the concrete realities of time and history. The result is a unique and thought-provoking confrontation of two major strands of modern thought and a central work in the development of Jameson’s monumental critical project.

Marxism and Form: 20th-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature – September 2026, with a foreword by Sianne Ngai.

In Marxism and Form, Fredric Jameson, one of the most important literary and cultural critics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, offers a pioneering look at major European Marxist and Frankfurt School thinkers—Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, Bloch, Lukács, and Sartre. Through penetrating readings, Jameson develops an influential mode of critical engagement that places art and culture at the heart of Marxist theory. The result lays the foundations for the entirety of Jameson’s monumental critical project—and remains a timely and vital work of aesthetic criticism for readers today.