Perspectives On Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci is widely known today for his profound impact on social and political thought, critical theory and literary methodology. This volume brings together twelve eminent scholars from humanities and social sciences to demonstrate the importance and relevance of Gramsci to their respective fields of inquiry. They bring into focus a number of central issues raised in Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks and in such other writings as his Prison Letters including: hegemony, common sense, civil society, subaltern studies, cultural analysis, media and film studies, postcolonial studies, international relations, linguistics, cultural anthropology, and historiography. The book makes an important, and up-to-date, contribution to the many academic debates and disciplines which utilize Gramsci’s writings for theoretical support; the essays are highly representative of the most advanced contemporary work on Gramsci. Contributors include: Michael Denning – highly respected in the field of cultural studies; Stephen Gill – an eminent figure in international relations; Epifanio San Juan, Jr. – a major writer in post-colonial theory; Joseph Buttigieg —translator of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks — ; Stanley Aronowitz, a distinguished sociologist, Marcia Landy — an important scholar of film studies; and Frank Rosengarten — editor of Gramsci’s Prison Letters. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of political philosophy, economics, film and media studies, sociology, education, literature, post-colonial studies, anthropology, subaltern studies, cultural studies, linguistics and international relations.

Edited collection on migration and civil society

This is a concise introduction to the life and work of the Italian militant and political thinker, Antonio Gramsci. As head of the Italian Communist Party in the 1920s, Gramsci was arrested and condemned to 20 years' imprisonment by Mussolini's fascist regime. It was during this imprisonment that Gramsci wrote his famous Prison Notebooks – over 2,000 pages of profound and influential reflections on history, culture, politics, philosophy and revolution. An Introduction to Antonio Gramsci retraces the trajectory of Gramsci's life, before examining his conceptions of culture, politics and philosophy. Gramsci's writings are then interpreted through the lens of his most famous concept, that of 'hegemony'; Gramsci's thought is then extended and applied to 'think through' contemporary problems to illustrate his distinctive historical methodology. The book concludes with a valuable examination of Gramsci's legacy today and useful tips for further reading. George Hoare and Nathan Sperber make Gramsci accessible for students of history, politics and philosophy keen to understand this seminal figure in 20th-century intellectual history.

This volume brings together twelve eminent scholars from humanities and social sciences to demonstrate the contemporary importance and relevance of Gramsci to their respective fields of inquiry.

This book will offer a full reconstruction of the history of Theoretical Marxism in Italy between 1895 and 1935, based on a rigorous philological method. The starting term (1895) is marked by the publication of Antonio Labriola's first essay on historical materialism (In memory of Communist Manifesto); the final term coincides with the conclusion of the "Prison Notebooks" written by Antonio Gramsci. This book analyses the original character of the Marxist philosophy in Italy, which emerged by distinguishing itself from the "orthodoxy" of the Second and Third International. By delineating a significant chapter in the history of Marxism, the book will also propose a specific contribution to the history of Italian Philosophy, which is here studied in relation to the developments of European philosophy, beyond the traditional subdivisions of Positivism, Idealism and Marxism.

Relates the writings of Antonio Gramsci and others to the contemporary debates in international relations.

A comprehensive reassessment of the relevance of Gramsci’s theory and practice at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Whilst commentaries on Antonio Gramsci and arguments surrounding his political and intellectual legacy have proliferated, little attention has been hitherto directed to linking the connections and contentions between Political Theory and International Political Economy. This volume brings together leading authorities engaged in common debates to produce, for the first time, a major collection that clarifies, addresses, and lays bare the manifest connections and contentions within political and international theory surrounding the legacy of Antonio Gramsci. In Part I, scholars examine various approaches to Gramsci’s thought, including his methodological principles, the specific conception of civil society he offers, his writings on war and cultural struggle, the spatial dimension of his thinking, and his philosophy of history. Part II focuses on very new developments in Gramsci scholarship concerning the questioning of contemporary world order. This includes reflections on his relevancy to issues of globalising capitalism, transformations in the state, revolutionary praxis, orientalism and empire, as well as European regionalism. This book was previously published as a special issue of the leading Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. (CRISPP)

Antonio Gramsci and his concept of hegemony have permeated social and political theory, cultural studies, education studies, literary criticism, international relations, and post-colonial theory. The centrality of language and linguistics to Gramsci's thought, however, has been wholly neglected. In Gramsci's Politics of Language, Peter Ives argues that a university education in linguistics and a preoccupation with Italian language politics were integral to the theorist's thought. Ives explores how the combination of Marxism and linguistics produced a unique and intellectually powerful approach to social and political analysis. To explicate Gramsci's writings on language, Ives compares them with other Marxist approaches to language, including those of the Bakhtin Circle, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt School, including Jürgen Habermas. From these comparisons, Ives elucidates the implications of Gramsci's writings, which, he argues, retained the explanatory power of the semiotic and dialogic insights of Bakhtin and the critical perspective of the Frankfurt School, while at the same time foreshadowing the key problems with both approaches that post-structuralist critiques would later reveal. Gramsci's Politics of Language fills a crucial gap in scholarship, linking Gramsci's writings to current debates in social theory and providing a framework for a thoroughly historical-materialist approach to language.