After Marx : literature theory and value in the twenty first century After Marx: Literature Theory and Value demonstrates the importance of Marxist literary and cultural criticism for an era of intersectional politics and economic decline. The volume includes fresh approaches to reading poetry fiction film and drama from Shakespeare to contemporary literature and shows how Marxist literary criticism improves our understanding of racial capitalism feminist politics colonialism deindustrialization high tech labor ecological crisis and other issues. A key innovation of the volumes essays is how they attend to Marxs theory of value. For Marx capitalist value demands a range of different kinds of labor as well as unemployment. This book shows the importance of Marxist approaches to literature that reach beyond simply demonstrating the revolutionary potential or the political consciousness of a 19th century style industrial working class. After Marx makes an argument for the twenty first century interconnectedness of widely different literary genres and far flung political struggles.