Variations is an interdisciplinary working group at the University of Pennsylvania focused on Marxism, critical theory, and literary theory. We share an interest in the analysis of literary texts and in the interpretation of the economic, political, and social contradictions encoded in them. Variations engages in a rigorous critique of cultural production, emphasizing the asymmetries it bears in relation to the capitalist world system and its combined and uneven development. We promote a critical and theoretical dialogue across the humanities and the social sciences, and are open to collaboration with all members of the scholarly community. Since 2018, Variations holds an academic year-long reading group on Karl Marx’s Capital.

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