Abstract

This dissertation outlines the forms of oppositional consciousness generated in reaction to U.S. social hierarchy by analyzing the ways in which these forms of consciousness have been theorized by prominent contemporary cultural critics. My thesis argues that U.S. "liberation" movements of the post WWII era generated five principle forms of consciousness in opposition, ideologies which then are unfortunately comprehended by movement activists as antagonistic to one another--a social and psychological fact which serves to divide movements of resistance from within. I demonstrate that U.S. third world feminism comprises a specific form of consciousness in opposition which takes into account the social struggles over race, class, sex, and gender justice which mark U.S. history during the twentieth century. This form of oppositional consciousness I term "differential," but Gloria Anzaldua has recently named it "la conciencia de la mestiza;" while differential consciousness and/or its specific technologies are variously described in contemporary works of cultural theorists as "differance," "world-traveling" "strategic essentialism," "signifyin," or "deconstruction." The overall effort here is directed toward developing this notion of oppositional consciousness as a methodological and theoretical tool which will make certain "minority" approaches to academic and political practices more visible and available within studies of "minority" discourses in particular and Cultural Studies in general. ;Chapter One provides a close reading of Fredric Jameson's position that form of consciousness in opposition are no longer possible under "postmodern" cultural conditions. Chapter two identifies five modes of social movement and consciousness operative under contemporary cultural conditions: the "equal rights," "revolutionary," "supremacist," "separatist," and "differential" forms. Chapter three is an in depth analysis of the differential form. My argument is that this form of resistance is only brought into being through the self-conscious enactment of what I call "the methodology of the oppressed" which is comprised of five different "technologies:" "semiotics," "deconstruction," "metaideologizing," "democratics," and "differential movement." When gathered together and self-consciously performed by a group in resistance, this methodology becomes the differential form of oppositional social movement. The last chapter demonstrates how this differential form is arising all over the first world and from differing locations