Gramsci: Everything that Concerns People

Adam David Morton Blog Site & Twitter

I have just found out about Adam David Morton's blog site in which you can find more about his research, publications and teaching. Please check it at: http://adamdavidmorton.com/

Also, if you want to follow him on twitter, you can find him at: AdamDavidMorton

Best,
Feyzullah

Gramsci in Translation - Turkish

Gramsci in Translation - Turkish

2012

Gramsci, Antonio. Hapishane Defterleri: 2. Cilt. (Joseph A. Buttigieg). Translated by Barış Baysal. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2012. ISBN: 6054511372.

2011

Gramsci, Antonio. Hapishane Defterleri: 1. Cilt. (Joseph A. Buttigieg). Translated by Ekrem Ekici. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2011. ISBN: 6054511204.

Ransome, Paul. Antonio Gramsci: Yeni Bir Giriş. Translated by Ali İhsan Başgül. Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları, 2011. ISBN: 6054412358.

Santucci, Antonio A. Gramsci’yi Anlamak. Translated by Selim Sezer. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2011. ISBN: 6054511044.

Borg, Carmel, Joseph Buttigieg, Peter Mayo. Gramsci ve Eğitim. Translated by Selim Sezer. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2011. ISBN: 9786054511198.

Mayo, Peter. Gramsci, Freire ve Yetişkin Eğitimi. Translated by Ahmet Duman. Ankara: Ütopya Yayınevi, 2011. ISBN: 9786055580179.

Morton, Adam David. Gramsci’yi Çözümlemek. Translated by Barış Baysal. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2011. ISBN: 9786054511150.

Ives, Peter. Gramsci’de Dil ve Hegemonya. Translated by Ekrem Ekici. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2011. ISBN: 9786055679996.

2009

Gramsci, Antonio. Hapishane Defterleri. Translated by Kenan Somer. Ankara: Aşina Kitaplar, 2009. ISBN: 9789944963336.

Gramsci, Antonio. Hapishane Defterleri. Translated by Adnan Cemgil. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 2009. ISBN: 9789753441487.

Fiori, Giuseppe. Antonio Gramsci: Bir Devrimcinin Yaşamı. Translated by Kudret Emiroğlu. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2009. ISBN: 9750506888.

2007

Anderson, Perry. Gramsci, Hegemonya, Doğu Batı Sorunu ve Strateji. Translated by Tarık Günersel. İstanbul: Salyangoz Yayınları, 2007. ISBN: 9799756277620.

2006

Crehan, Kate. Gramsci, Kültür, Antropoloji. Translated by Ümit Aydoğmuş. İstanbul: Kalkedon Yayınları, 2006. ISBN: 9789750073700.

2000

Lombardi, Franco. Antonio Gramsci’nin Marksist Pedagojisi. Translated by Başak Ekmen, Sibel Özbudun. Ankara: Ütopya Yayınevi, 2000. ISBN: 9789758382194.

1998

Gramsci, Antonio. Komünist Partiye Doğru. Translated by Celal A. Kanat, J. Mathews. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 1998. ISBN: 9789753441711.

Gramsci, Antonio. Çocuklarıma Mektuplar. Translated by Cemal Erez, Meral Erez. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları, 1998. ISBN: 9789753441575.

1993

Pasolini, Pier Paolo. Gramsci’nin Külleri. Translated by Rekin Teksoy. İstanbul: Nisan Yayınları, 1993. ISBN: 9789757496397.

Yeniden Gramsci: Hegemonya, Devlet ve Yeniden Devrim Sorunu

27. Sayı – Yeniden Gramsci: Hegemonya, Devlet ve Yeniden Devrim Sorunu

Sayı Editörü: Ebru Deniz Ozan, Deniz Yıldırım

Bu Sayıda

Sosyolojik Marksizmin Sınırları?
Adam David Morton

Pasif Devrimlerde Toplum, Siyaset ve Bloklar
Cihan Tuğal

 

Galip Yalman’la Gramsci Üzerine Söyleşi

Antonio Gramsci’nin Organik Bütünlük Anlayışı Çerçevesinde Devrimi Yeniden Düşünmek Gökhan Demir
Ali Yalçın Göymen

Antonio Gramsci’nin Türkiye Serüveni
Fuat Özdinç – Ümit Özger

İslami Burjuvazinin Siyasal İktisadı: MÜSİAD Örneği
Berkay Ayhan – Seher Sağıroğlu

2011 Krizinin Gölgesinde Yeni Sanayi Politikaları Üzerine Bir Not
Ümit Akçay

Değerler ve Değer Yaratma Süreci: İşletmeTarihi Bağlamında Bir Deneme ya da Politik İktisadın Sosyolojik Eleştirisine Eleştiri
Koray R.Yılmaz

“Devrimci-Halkçı Yerel Yönetimler Sempozyumu”
Begüm Özden Fırat

Susan Buck-Morss: "Sharing is the New Property"

Susan Buck-Morss is a political philosopher whose writings I have started following after I read her book on Islamism and Critical Theory in 2008. This was a collection of her talks given at various locations to various audiences about the common or similar theoretical motivations and reasonings behind Islamism and Critical Theory, and perhaps a possible "alliance" between them against the liberal-capitalist power structures dominating not only the space, but also the minds and the hearts.

When I heard that she was going to visit Istanbul to give a talk at Istanbul Sehir University, I was very excited. Listening to her was going to be a nice experience for me, and it really was like I thought it would be. But there was even more to that. Before her returning back to the USA, I managed to arrange a meeting with her at her hotel lobby. We sat down and talked for about an hour and exchanged thoughts on various issues. She signed a book for me, and we took a photograph together. The photo is not in great quality since we didn't have a good camera with us, but of course it is better than nothing

Feyzullah Yilmaz & Susan Buck-Morss & Alp Eren Topal

Now, I will write here some headlines from her speech:

1) "globalization is a new time, not space"

2) "universal human characteristics"

3) "Sharing is the new property": The nicest part in her speech, I think, was about the things she said about property. She made a distinction between the capitalist property, that is private ownership of things out of which alienation emerges, and socialist property in which there is a common state ownership regarding things. After describing these two forms of property, she argued that in today's globalizing world, sharing is or will be the new property. She said that identities, cultures, ideas, things, etc. are being shared, and this is becoming the new form of property today.

4) "no fault-lines between us and them"

5) "we are all interconnected"

6) "not the end of history as such, but the end of history of a certain kind"

7) The title of her speech was "Democracy Incompleted", and toward the end of her speech, she talked about three paradoxes of democracy which have to be dealt with if democracy is to be "completed".

a) the huge gap between the poor and the rich

b) the gap between democratic egalitarianism versus elitism

c) the gap between nation-state thinking and global thinking

8) "political islam owes much to marxism in its critique of capitalism"

9) "islamism, i.e. zakat or islamic banking, is not (cannot be) the solution to the problems of today's liberal-capitalist world order"

10) During the question and answer section, she was asked whether there was no validity at all about the concepts such as civilization, western civilization, islamic civilization, etc. - the concepts she criticized during her presentation. In her reply, she made a comment about being a theorist, and I liked it. She said. "One of the tasks of the theorist is to shift/change the concepts and conceptual understandings, not to harden them."

Antonio A. Santucci, "Antonio Gramsci"

Antonio Gramsci, by Antonio A. Santucci. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010.  $0.00; paper, $0.00 US. ISBN: 978-1-58367-210-5. Pages: 7-201.

Does Gramsci still have something to tell us in a world “without communism”? Can we, as Joseph A. Buttigieg argues, consider Gramsci’s writings as a classic which is both an expression of its epoch, and also an effort to resist contingency and remain open to dialogue with future generations? (p. 19). Antonio A. Santucci’s, an eminent philological scholar of Gramscian texts, well-written intellectual biography of Antonio Gramsci can be viewed as an attempt to answer these questions. In doing this, Santucci provides us not only with a critical evaluation of Gramsci’s ideas, but also tries to explain how they might still be valid for today. It is important to pay attention to Santucci’s interpretation of Gramsci because, as Buttigieg makes it clear, it is through his philologically scrupulous editions of L’Ordine Nuovo [The New Order] (with Valentino Gerratana), Letters: 1909-1926, and Letters from Prison, scholars and students have reliable access to some of Gramsci’s most important writings. (p.10).

In addition to a Preface written by Eric Hobsbawm and a Foreword by Joseph A. Buttigieg, the book consists of five chapters which are Introduction, The Political Writings, The Letters from Prison, The Prison Notebooks, and End-of-Century Gramsci. The chapters reflect Santucci’s distinguishing of Gramsci’s “writings preceeding his incarceration and those of his prison years. To the former belong the hundreds of articles published in various periodicals until the end of 1926; to the latter belong the Letters from Prison and the Prison Notebooks.” (p. 30).

In an intellectual biography, the author tries to provide his/her readers in a coherent manner of the ideas and events that surround intellectual’s life. It can be said that Santucci deals successfully with this challenge by presenting the life-story of Antonio Gramsci without losing the in-depth analysis of his ideas. The links between the text and the context throughout the life of the intellectual is presented in a successful way, that is, Santucci presents both the impact of the context on the ideas of Gramsci, and also the efforts of Gramsci to influence the context through his ideas and writings.

The book’s contributions to the debates regarding Gramsci and his ideas can be gathered under two headings: theoretical and methodological. Theoretically, Santucci tries to contribute to the debates by pointing out to Gramsci’s criticisms of Marx, and of different interpretations of Marxism. For instance, he argues that Gramsci’s criticisms were directed toward Bukharin’s dogmatic Marxism which was mechanistic, lacked dialectical spirit, and produced historical and political determinism. (p. 149). Santucci argues that Gramsci was both against the attempts to canonize Marxism and also to mechanistic and determinist interpretations of Marxism. In place of this determinism and economism, Gramsci tried to open up more space for the subjective element of the will, or in other words, the power of the agency. What is more interesting, I think, is Santucci’s attempt to show the intellectual evolution of Gramsci from being a Crocean to being a Marxist. Being strongly influenced by the idealist Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce, Young Gramsci’s idealistic formation is evident in many of his writings in this period, says Santucci. (p.65). However, later, in a similar way to Marx’s relation with Hegel, Gramsci left Croce behind and developed an anti-Crocean stance with the help of Marx. Finally, the closer Gramsci approached Marx, the more his intellectual path diverged from that of Croce. (p. 146).

Reading Gramsci is also useful to be reminded of various methodological issues and problems that can emerge while studying political theory. Some of the issues Gramsci is concerned with are the idea of leitmotif, importance of dialectical thinking and anti-dogmatism, and particularism as opposed to totalizing approaches. While approaching a political philosopher, Gramsci argues that instead of isolated quotations, one should be interested in the leitmotif that provides the general motivation for this particular philosopher. Again, instead of universalism, totalizing theories and determinism, one should pay attention to particularism, inseperability of theory and practice, and dialogical and dialectical thinking. By presenting Gramsci’s own approach to the classics of political theory, Santucci warns scholars who utilize Gramsci’s ideas and concepts in their studies to not to look for isolated sentences or supporting arguments, but instead to be faithful to Gramsci’s general message, or his leitmotif.

In addition to these theoretical and methodological debates, in the first chapter, Santucci discusses the method of Gramsci, the outline of his notebooks, and how to categorize his writings. He talks about Gramsci’s concerns about temporary, perhaps superficial writings on the one hand, and philosophical, more coherent and systematic writings on the other. Also he explains Gramsci’s ability to combine practice and theory, thought and action, and how his thinking of the intellectual is related with other parts of his theory, such as culture, politics, education.

In the second chapter, Political Writings, which is devoted to the analysis of the journalistic writings of Gramsci, Santucci tells about Gramsci’s journalism, the Ordine Nuovo experience, and about the intense and close relationship between Gramsci as the journalist, and the proletariat life in the industrial city of Turin. Although Gramsci considers his journalistic writings as superficial and temporary, in his pre-prison writings, as Santucci shows, one can find the initial core thoughts and arguments which later will become the basis of his more theoretical concepts and ideas, such as historical bloc, political party, and hegemony.

In the third chapter, Santucci explains how Gramsci’s personal letters which were mostly sent to his relatives can help us understand his theoretical development. Later, in the fourth chapter, he discusses the Prison Notebooks.

In the final chapter, Santucci returns to the question of whether or not Gramsci can guide us today, but sounds a bit ambigious. Despite the crisis of the historical communism and the disappearance of the Italian Communist Party from the political scene, which are important in thinking about Gramsci’s relevance today, (p. 162) Santucci argues that as long as questions related to justice, freedom and equality remain unsolved, Gramsci’s ideas would remain valid in confronting current problems. However, he argues that “if Gramsci is not relevant in these cases, it is because major politics, which goes beyond the simple administrative tasks, […] has lost topicality as well. If they continue to stand on the sidelines, then indeed Gramsci’s ideas will definitely be defeated. However, a defeat of Gramsci’s ideas could also signify a collective defeat." (p. 173).

In brief, Santucci tackles well with the challenge of providing the reader an integrated story of the ideas and life of Antonio Gramsci. It can make significant contributions  to the methodological and theoretical debates about Gramsci. Especially his emphasis on the concept of leitmotif, dialogical and dialectical thinking, anti-dogmatism, particularism can serve as guiding principles for scholars who continue to study on Gramsci’s ideas.

New Publications Related to Gramsci - by Marcus Green, International Gramsci Society

Below is a list of recent publications related to Gramsci which is prepared by Marcus Green and originally located on the website of International Gramsci Society.

English

Gramsci in Translation

Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks: Three Volume Set. Translated by Joseph A. Buttigieg. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. ISBN: 9780231157551

Articles by Gramsci published in the International Press Correspondence. Introduced by Derek Boothman. International Gramsci Journal No. 3 (March 2011). [pdf]

• The Genoa Conference and Italy, Inprecorr Vol.2, No.28, p.211 (19 April 1922).
• The Mussolini government, Inprecorr Vol. 3, No. 102, p. 824.
• Fascism: Letter from Italy, Inprecorr Vol. 4, No. 1. (3 January1924).
• Italy and Yugoslavia, Inprecorr Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 25-26. (24 January 1924).
• Election Results in Italy, Inprecorr Vol. 4, No. 25, p. 231.
• The situation in the Communist party of Italy, Inprecorr Vol. 5, No. 60, pp. 835-6.

Articles & Books Related to Gramsci

Bruff, Ian. “What about the Elephant in the Room? Varieties of Capitalism, Varieties in Capitalism”. New Political Economy, vol. 16, no. 4 (2011): 481-500. Link.

Abstract: Conceived as considerably broader than simply the Varieties of Capitalism framework, I argue that the varieties of capitalism literature is premised upon an institutional reductionism which necessitates the search for a more holistic approach. In brief, if we are to explain convincingly the evolution of national political economies, then we must acknowledge that varieties of capitalism are also varieties in capitalism. In particular, Antonio Gramsci's writings on common sense enable us to focus on the role of institutions as a historical force without abandoning the system of production that they are part of. I then provide an alternative explanation, compared to the varieties of capitalism literature, of the evolution of the Dutch and German political economies in order to demonstrate the advantages of the framework I develop.

Bruff, Ian. “Overcoming the State/Market Dichotomy”, in Stuart Shields, Ian Bruff & Huw Macartney (eds), Critical International Political Economy: Dialogue, Debate and Dissensus (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 80-98. ISBN: 9780230280304.

Crehan, Kate. “Gramsci's Concept of Common Sense: A Useful Concept for Anthropologists?” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 273-87. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: The article begins with a brief look at the anthropological notion of culture and some of its ghosts, contrasting this with Gramsci's very different approach. It goes on to look in detail at Gramsci's concept of ‘common sense’, arguing that common sense as theorized by Gramsci provides anthropologists (whose discipline is so concerned with the quotidian) and others, with a useful theoretical tool with which to map everyday life. Gramsci's understanding of common sense encompasses its givenness – how it is both constitutive of our subjectivity and confronts us as an external reality – but also stresses its contradictions, fluidity and potential for change. To help clarify the specific character of the Gramscian notion of common sense, the article compares it with another concept that has been widely embraced within anthropology and elsewhere: Pierre Bourdieu's notion of habitus – a notion, I argue, that remains in many ways tethered to its anthropological origins.

Dainotto, Roberto. “Gramsci's Bibliographies.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 211-24. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: As homage to John Cammett's bibliographical works, the essay looks at the importance, strategic uses and critical relevance of bibliographies in the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. In the overcoming of vulgar determinism that Gramsci called ‘philosophy of praxis’, bibliographies became – more than mere superstructural effects – social institutions through which a critical war of position could be waged against both Gentile's fascist idealism and against Croce's liberal one.

Fontana, Benedetto. “Politics and History in Gramsci.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 225-38. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: The work of historian John Cammett underlines the intimate relation that Gramsci establishes among thought, history and politics. Gramsci's political thought is an extended discourse on the relation between party and class, and on the formation of hegemonic and subaltern forms of consciousness. Reading Cammett highlights Gramsci's passion for a politics that would renovate and remake the world. Both Gramsci and Cammett looked within the existing society for the trace elements from which would emerge a new politics to construct a new order and a new historical reality.

Gill, Stephen, ed. Global Crises and the Crisis of Global Leadership. Cambridge University Press, 2011. ISBN 9781107674967.

Table of Contents

Part I. Concepts of Global Leadership and Dominant Strategies:
1. Leaders and led in an era of global crises. Stephen Gill
2. Leadership, neoliberal governance and global economic crisis: a Gramscian analysis. Nicola Short
3. Private transnational governance and the crisis of global leadership. A. Claire Cutler
Part II. Changing Material Conditions of Existence and Global Leadership – Energy, Climate Change and Water
4. The crisis of petro-market civilization – the past as prologue? Tim Di Muzio
5. Global climate change, human security, and the future of democracy. Richard A. Falk
6. The emerging global freshwater crisis and the privatization of global leadership. Hilal Elver
Part III. Global Leadership Ethics, Crises and Subaltern Forces:
7. Global leadership, ethics and global health – the search for new paradigms. Solomon R. Benatar
8. Global leadership and the Islamic world – crisis, contention and challenge. Mustapha Kamal Pasha
9. Public and insurgent reason – adjudicatory leadership in a hyper-globalizing world. Upendra Baxi
Part IV. Prospects for Alternative Forms of Global Leadership:
10. Global democratization without hierarchy or leadership? The world social forum in the capitalist world. Teivo Teivainen
11. After neoliberalism – left versus right projects of leadership in the global crisis. Ingar Solty
12. Crises, social forces and the future of global governance – implications for progressive strategy. Adam Harmes
13. Organic crisis, global leadership and progressive alternatives. Stephen Gill.

Glassman, Jim. “Cracking Hegemony in Thailand: Gramsci, Bourdieu and the Dialectics of Rebellion.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 41.1 (2011) : 25-46. [Link].

Gramsci's notion of “hegemony,” like Bourdieu's concept of “habitus,” seems designed to explain accommodation to existing social structures, rather than resistance. In this paper, however, I draw from the Prison Notebooks some arguments that contribute to a Gramscian understanding of how hegemony may break apart under the weight of the same uneven development processes central to hegemony. Drawing also from Bourdieu, I argue that the conceptions of “hegemony” and “habitus” inscribe the possibility of resistance within the embodied experience of accommodation to class rule. I then elaborate a dialectical, Gramscian-Bourdieusian account of the Red Shirt movement in Thailand, showing that the seeds for the destruction of royalist hegemony in Thailand have been sown in the embodied processes of accommodation to ruling class hegemony. The breadth and depth of challenges to this hegemony, moreover, are evident not only from the activities of the Red Shirt movement and regional discontent in Northern and Northeast Thailand but from the resistance of working class women to attempts to police their sexuality and limit their consumerism. The refusal of Thai elites to accept the breadth and depth of Thailand's dispositional transformation has legitimised – in their eyes – the brutal crackdown on Red Shirt protestors that resulted in the April-May 2010 massacres. Yet repression can only kill off political leaders and specific parties; it will not likely derail the growing resentment of ordinary Thais over elitist class rule.

Green, Marcus E., ed. Rethinking Gramsci. New York: Routledge, 2011. [Link].

Table of Contents

Marcus E. Green, Introduction: Rethinking Marxism and Rethinking Gramsci
I. Culture and Criticism
1. Stuart Hall. Race, Culture, and Communications: Looking Backward and Forward at Cultural Studies
2. Paul Bové. Dante, Gramsci and Cultural Criticism
3. Daniel O'Connell. Bloom and Babbitt: A Gramscian View
4. Marcia Landy. Socialist Education Today: Pessimism or optimism of the intellect?
II. Hegemony, Subalternity, Common Sense
5. Derek Boothman. The Sources for Gramsci's Concept of Hegemony
6. Marcus E. Green. Gramsci Cannot Speak: Presentations and Interpretations of Gramsci's Concept of the Subaltern
7. Cosimo Zene. Self-consciousness of the Dalits as 'subalterns:' Reflections on Gramsci in South Asia
8. Evan Watkins. Gramscian Politics and Capitalist Common Sense
9. Frank R. Annunziato. Gramsci's theory of trade unionism
10. Nelson Moe. Production and Its Others, Gramsci's 'Sexual Question'
11. Adam David Morton. Social Forces in the Struggle over Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives in International Political Economy
12. Richard Howson. From Ethico-Political Hegemony to Post-Marxism
III. Political Philosophy
13. Richard D. Wolff. Gramsci, Marxism and Philosophy
14. Carlos Nelson Coutinho. General Will and Democracy in Rousseau, Hegel, and Gramsci
15. Wolfgang Fritz Haug. From Marx to Gramsci, from Gramsci to Marx: Historical Materialism and the Philosophy of Praxis
16. Steven R. Mansfield. Gramsci and the Dialectic
17. Esteve Morera. Gramsci's Critical Modernity
IV. On Gramsci's Prison Notebooks
18. David F. Ruccio. Unfinished Business: Gramsci's Prison Notebooks
19. Joseph W. Childers. Of Prison Notebooks and the Restoration of an Archive
20. Peter Ives. The Mammoth Task of Translating Gramsci
21. William V. Spanos. Cuvier's Little Bone: Joseph Buttigieg's English Edition of Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks
22. Joseph A. Buttigieg. The Prison Notebooks: Antonio Gramsci's Work in Progress

Green, Marcus E. “Rethinking the subaltern and the question of censorship in Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks.” Postcolonial Studies 14.4 (2011): 387-404. [Link]

Abstract: This article provides a new reading of Gramsci's concept of subaltern social groups. Through a philological analysis of the Prison Notebooks, the article puts into question the widespread (mis)interpretation in subaltern studies and postcolonial literature that Gramsci developed the phrase ‘subaltern social groups’ as code for the word ‘proletariat’ in his Prison Notebooks in order to deceive prison censors. The article first demonstrates how the diffusion of the ‘subaltern censorship thesis’ has limited current interpretations of Gramsci's concept of the subaltern to strictly class terms. Then, through an exegesis of Notebook 25, the article demonstrates that there is no textual evidence to support the censorship thesis. Finally, through an examination of several notes in Notebook 25, the article provides an extrapolation of Gramsci's concept of subalternity. This reveals that Gramsci's concept of the subaltern is not limited to class relations and that subalternity in the Gramscian sense encompasses an intersectionality of race, class, gender, and religion. In contrast to current literature, this article shows that Gramsci's concept of the subaltern is more complex than often recognized and that his analysis of subalternity relates to the function of intellectuals, constructions of identity and otherness, historiography, representation, the national popular, coloniality, and political organization.

Guha, Ranajit. “Gramsci in India: Homage to a Teacher.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 288-95. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: In this paper (first delivered at the Gramsci Foundation in Rome in 2007), the distinguished Indian historian Ranajit Guha pays homage to the influence of Gramsci's writings in India and in particular of the development of Subaltern Studies. His paper traces the impact of Gramsci's ideas – in particular the notion of hegemony – on those writing about South Asian history since the early 1960s, and the ways in which they made possible a fuller understanding of how the dichotomies between its elite and subaltern streams limited the ability of the leaders of the Indian nationalist movement to mobilize its popular base.

Krätke, Michael R.. “Antonio Gramsci’s Contribution to a Critical Economics.” Historical Materialism 19.3 (2011): 63-105.

Abstract: According to conventional wisdom, Antonio Gramsci is a political philosopher lacking in, and who avoids, a serious interest in political economy. That is a serious misrepresentation of Gramsci's works and thought. Equally wrong is the widespread view that anything Gramsci had to say about political economy is to be found in his scattered notes on `Americanism and Fordism'. On the contrary, a careful rereading of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks shows that Marx's great and unfinished project of the critique of political economy plays a crucial rôle for Gramsci's efforts to come to grips with the basics of a critical social science that could live up to the aspirations of a `scientific socialism'. As Gramsci was fully aware of the everyday battles of ideas in capitalist societies to be fought about the notions and tenets of popular or vulgar political economy, he did the best he could in order to understand and clarify the bases of a `critical' and `scientific' political economy. A political economy that was and still is urgently needed in order to fight the strongest of the strongholds of bourgeois hegemony - the ideas of vulgar economics in everybody's heads.

McNally, Mark. “Revisiting the Gramsci-Bukharin Relationship: Neglected Symmetries.” History of European Ideas 37.3 (2011): 365-375. Link.

Abstract: In this article I revisit the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and Nikolai Bukharin from a contextual perspective to argue for a revision in the way current scholarship on Gramsci interprets his thought as fundamentally at odds with that of Bukharin. I show in particular that if we resist the temptation to reduce Bukharin to the level of his 1921 book, Historical Materialism, and concentrate instead on his more sophisticated NEP writings of the mid-1920s a series of symmetries in the advanced thought of these two key thinkers of early 20th century Marxism emerges that have been poorly recognised in the literature on Gramsci to date.

Morera, Esteve. Gramsci’s Historicism: A Realist Interpretation. Routledge, 2011. (Routledge Revivals)

Abstract: First published in 1990, this book is a comprehensive study of Gramsci's Quaderni, and gives the reader a penetrating account of the structure of Gramsci's thought. The author draw on many materials and sources, making accesible to the English-speaking reader a wide range of texts otherwise only available in Italian, French, Spanish, and Catalan. His book sheds light on Gramsci's basic philosophical and methodological principles, and will be useful as an introduction to Gramsci for students of political science, sociology, social science, history, and philosophy, as well as to scholars in the field.

Morera, Esteve. “Antonio Gramsci: Social Theory - Hegemony, Civil Society,” in Avenel Companion to Modern Social Theorists. Edited by Pradip Basu. Memari (West Bengal): Avenel Press, 2011.

Morton, Adam. Revolution and State in Modern Mexico: The Political Economy of Uneven Development. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011. [Link].

Abstract: This groundbreaking study develops a new approach to understanding the formation of the post-revolutionary state in Mexico. In a shift away from dominant interpretations, Adam Morton considers the construction of the revolution and the modern Mexican state through a fresh analysis of the Mexican Revolution, the era of import substitution industrialization, and neoliberalism. Throughout, the author makes interdisciplinary links among geography, political economy, postcolonialism, and Latin American studies in order to provide a new framework for analyzing the development of state power in Mexico. He also explores key processes in the contestation of the modern state, specifically through studies of the role of intellectuals, democratization and democratic transition, and spaces of resistance. As Morton argues, all these themes can only be fully understood through the lens of uneven development in Latin America.

Nieto-Galan, Agustí. “Antonio Gramsci Revisited: Historians of Science, Intellectuals, and the Struggle for Hegemony.” History of Science 49.4 (2011): 453–478.

Paggi, Leonardo. “Dear John, Where Is the World We Lost?” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 170-78. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: These personal memories and recollections seek to relocate John Cammett's contribution in the history of Italian and American politics in the 1960s. Cammett's deep involvement in the thought and human personality of Gramsci was closely intertwined with his fascination for the Italian communist left, which since the Resistance against Nazi-fascism had demonstrated its capacity to mobilize on a very wide scale the participation of the popular masses in the country's political life. Gramsci was for him a living cultural symbol and image of a successfully political movement whose counter-tar had been totally defeated, on the contrary, in the history of the United States. But Cammett's book on Gramsci brought an important chapter of Italian culture to the attention of the American Left at a moment when it was seeking new ideas and identities to challenge a political system weakened and undermined by the ideological constrains of the 1950s and its commitment to a very unpopular war.

Pearmain, Andrew. The Politics of New Labour: A Gramscian Analysis. London: Lawrence & Wishart Ltd, 2011. [Link].

Contents
Introduction: Gramsci, History and New Labour
Part I Gramsci and his Legacy
1. First Uses of Gramsci
2. Optimism of the Seventies, Pessimism of the Eighties
3. Iron in our souls: the hegemony of Thatcherism
4. The Abuses of Gramsci: 'Post-Marxism', Postmodernism and Cultural Studies
5. The 'Euro-communist' Roots of New Labour: Marxism Today
6. The 'Euro-communist' roots of New Labour: 'New Times'
Part II A Critique of New Labour
7. The Makings of New Labour
8. Neil Kinnock and the Labour Party Policy Review
9. Labour, Modernity and 'Modernisation'
10. What New Labour Took from the Left
11. What New Labour Left Out: the 'Gramscian' Left

Perkins, Harold A. “Gramsci in Green: Neoliberal Hegemony Through Urban Forestry and the Potential for a Political Ecology of Praxis.” Geoforum, 2011 (forthcoming) [Link].

Righi, Andrea. Biopolitics and Social Change in Italy: From Gramsci to Pasolini to Negri. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. ISBN: 9780230115033.

Abstract: The study of how life can be controlled, supported, and manipulated has become the most urgent scientific and political task of our society. Each discipline approaches this biopolitical dimension with its tools and agenda; however they ignore how labor over time has materially produced crucial transformations in the manipulation of life. By placing the social dimension of labor at the base of the discourse of life, this book engages with the work of key intellectual figures including Gramsci, Pasolini, the neo-feminist militants of Lotta Femminista, Negri, and Virno, and reconstructs a critical genealogy of the notion of biopolitics from the point of view of twentieth and twenty-first century Italy.

Roberts, David D. “Reconsidering Gramsci's Interpretation of Fascism.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 239-55. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: The increasingly accepted notion that fascism was not merely reactionary but revolutionary, competing with Marxism, invites reassessment of Gramsci's interpretation of fascism. With his emphasis on the relative autonomy of political and cultural factors, Gramsci might have recognized the scope for a competing revolution, even if only the better to counter it. But though his initial analysis of the Italian revolutionary situation was almost proto-fascist in certain respects, he dismissed fascist claims to constitute an alternative revolution, and, partly as a result, he consistently underestimated fascism prior to 1926. After his imprisonment, however, he began seeking to devise the categories necessary to understand fascism's unanticipated triumph. Although he continued to sidestep aspects of the fascist challenge, his innovative way of analyzing fascism as a form of Caesarism, engaged in a war of attrition, enabled him to illuminate the peculiar combination of accomplishment, limitation and failure that characterized the fascist regime.

Rosengarten, Frank. “John Cammett's Writings on Antonio Gramsci and the Pci.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 195-210. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: This essay on John Cammett's contributions to Gramsci studies is composed of four parts. Part 1 deals with the intriguing interplay in Cammett's writings between Old Left loyalties and New Left challenges to it. Part 2 focuses on his work as a bibliographer and editor, the most important aspect of which is his monumental Bibliografia gramsciana, comprising three volumes published in 1991, 1995 and 2001. Part 3 consists of some remarks on Cammett's career as a professor and academic administrator. Part 4 is a brief discussion of the book for which he is most widely known, his 1967 study Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism.

Slaughter, Jane. “Gramsci's Place in Women's History.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 256-72. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: This paper traces the connections between Antonio Gramsci's ideas and developments in Western gender and women's history. The revival of women's history in the West in the 1970s brought the discovery or reacquaintance with Gramsci's writings, and this essay looks at examples of recent scholarship in gender and women's history that employs Gramscian theory. Equally important will be a consideration of Gramsci himself as an actor on the stage of women's history in the years before World War II. The last third of the paper places Gramsci in Italian family life, Communist Party politics and men's and women's prison experiences in the first half of the twentieth century. This discussion benefits from the growth of secondary literature on gender and women's history in Italy for this era, and rests on the many primary accounts left by women who lived and worked with Gramsci.

Srivastava, Neelam, and Baidik Bhattacharya, eds. The Postcolonial Gramsci. Routledge, 2011.ISBN 9780415874816.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Postcolonial Gramsci. Neelam Srivastava and Baidik Bhattacharya
I. Gramsci and Postcolonial Studies
1. Il Gramsci meridionale. Robert JC Young
2. Provincializing the Italian Reading of Gramsci. Paolo Capuzzo and Sandro Mezzadra
3. The Travels of the Organic Intellectual: The Black Colonized Intellectual in George Padmore and Frantz Fanon. Neelam Srivastava
4. The Secular Alliance: Gramsci, Said and the Postcolonial Question. Baidik Bhattacharya
II. Gramsci and the Global Present
5. The 'Unseen Order': Religion, Secularism and Hegemony. Iain Chambers
6. Gramsci in the Twenty-first Century. Partha Chatterjee
7. Entering the World from an Oblique Angle: On Jia Zhangke as an Organic Intellectual. Pheng Cheah
8. Questioning Intellectuals: Reading Caste with Gramsci in Two Indian Literary Texts. Rajeswari Sunder Rajan
9. Mariátegui and Gramsci in 'Latin' América: Between Revolution and Decoloniality. Walter D. Mignolo
III. Epilogue
Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Vacca, Giuseppe. “Gramsci Studies since 1989.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, vol. 16, no. 2 (2011): 179-94. Special Issue: Gramsci Revisited. Essays in Memory of John M. Cammett. [Link].

Abstract: John Cammett's collaboration with the Gramsci Institute Foundation began in the spring of 1989. John had prepared an international biography of studies on Gramsci's life and writings, which, with help from some young researchers at the Foundation, he presented during the Institute's conference on ‘Gramsci in the World’ (Formia, October 1989) that resulted in the birth of the International Gramsci Society. The bibliography was first published in 1991 in the first volume of the Annali of the Gramsci Institute, and in revised and updated form again in 1993. Subsequently, it was digitized and, under John's direction, regularly updated by Francesco Giasi and Luisa Righi: when it went online in 2005 it became the key instrument for internationalizing Gramsci studies. After 1989, the Institute had been able to resume its research in the Komintern archives and was receiving the flow of new documents from the private papers of the Gramsci-Schucht family in Moscow which gave rise to a new set of studies on Gramsci's political and family life between 1926 and 1937.

Zene, Cosimo. “Self-Consciousness of the Dalits as ‘Subalterns’: Reflections on Gramsci in South Asia.” Rethinking Marxism 23.1 (2011): 83-99. [Link].

In this article I reflect on Gramsci's category of the “subaltern,” taking into consideration recent contributions to this topic, particularly those offered by Joseph Buttigieg, Giorgio Baratta, and Marcus Green. The latter, besides presenting an eloquent critique of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's article “Can the Subaltern Speak?” allows me to return to Gramscian sources so as to carry out a radicalization of Gramsci's positions with reference to the experience of “Untouchables”/Dalits in South Asia. There is little doubt that inquiry into the “subaltern question” in India today cannot ignore the “Dalit question.” The case study referring to the Rishi-Dalits of Bangladesh accentuates still further the precarious position of these groups as subalterns, but also their aspiration to overcome subalternity.

German

Opratko, Benjamin, and Oliver Prausmüller, eds. Gramsci global: Neogramscianische Perspektiven in der Internationalen Politischen Ökonomie. Argument Verlag, 2011. ISBN: 9783867543101.

For the first time in German, this volume brings together a systematic analysis of "neo-Gramsian perspectives" of international political economy. The current crisis of global capitalism raises fundamental questions that are examined in th discipline of IPE. How can we understand the global implementation of the neoliberal project? What is the relationship between state, civil society and the economy that characterizes neoliberal capitalism? What are the contradictions which allow social movements and organic intellectuals to intervene? Contributions by Hans-Jürgen Bieling, Robert W. Cox, Stephen Gill, Catherine & Katherina Hajek Kinzel, Laura Horn, Branwen Gruffydd Jones, Adam David Morton, Nicola Sekler & Ulrich Brand, Ngai-Ling Sum, Benjamin Oliver & Opratko Prausmüller, Bernd Röttger and Jens Winter.

Japanese

La Città Futura, Tokyo Gramsci Society Bulletin No. 52 (November 2011)

1. Notebook 19 Italian Risorgimento §14-23, translated by Prison Notebooks Research Group
2. The argument against the discontinuity and the "witnes" of Pertini in reply to the criticisms of Mr. Matsuda, by Tomihisa Suzuki
3. For the research of the Subaltern Notebook, by Hiroshi Matsuda
4. Social movements and the role of the party in the thought of Gramsci and today, by Guido Liguori
5. Book review of Junji Nishikado, The Mobile Theory of the Thought of Lukacs, by Ken Yamane
6. Oppressors and the Oppressed by A. Gramsci at the age of 19
7. Factory council movments in Turin and G. Sorel, Editorial published in l'Ordine nuovo, 11 Oct 1919.

La Città Futura, Tokyo Gramsci Society Bulletin No. 51 (August 2011)

1. Notebook 19 Italian Risorgimento §6-12, translated by Prison Notebooks Research Group
2. Sakubei Yamamoto and his collection depicting the conditions of coal mines approved for UNESCO's Memory of the World heritage registration, by Nobuaki Kurosawa
3. Book reviews:
   · Antonio Labriola, Socialism and Philosophy, by Tadashi Suzuki
   · Antonio Gramsci, On Subalterns, Volume VII of Collected Works, translated annotated by Hiroshi Matsuda, by Hiromi Fujioka
   · Nabuaki Jurosawa, On life long learning: Conceptions of Civil society and Pedagogy Today, by Shigeki Maruyama
   · Tomihisa Suzuki, A. Gramsci: Prison Notebooks and the formation of a critical sociology, by Shoichi Takaya

La Città Futura, Tokyo Gramsci Society Bulletin No. 50 (April 2011)

1. Notebook 19 Italian Risorgimento §5, translated by Prison Notebooks Research Group
2. Social enterprise movement animating civil society, by Hisao Kozuka
3. Review of Hiroyuki Aoyagi, Marx and his educational thought, by Nobuaki Kurosawa
4. Review of Tomihisa Suzuki, A research on Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, by Takemi Miyashita
5. In commemoration of 120 years of his birth: The thought of A. Gramsci and our molecular revolution, by Eleonora Forenza, translated by Koichi Ohara

Portuguese

Bianchi, Alvaro ; ALIAGA, Luciana . Força e consenso como fundamentos do Estado: Pareto e Gramsci. Revista Brasileira de Ciência Política, Niterói, n. 3, p. 17-36, 2011.

Bianchi, Alvaro. Antonio Gramsci e a ciência política italiana. In Giovanni Semeraro, Marcos Marques de Oliveira, Percival Tavares da Silva, Sônia Nogueira Leitão (orgs.). Gramsci e os movimentos populares. Niterói: UFF, 2011, v. , p. 189-200.

Countinho, Carlos Nelson. De Rousseau a Gramsci: ensaios de teoria política. Boitempo, 2011. ISBN: 978-85-7559-183-3

Nesta nova empreitada intelectual, o autor aponta as potencialidades transformadoras e os dilemas de fenômenos políticos, como a democracia, pelo pensamento de Rousseau, Hegel, Marx e Gramsci, além de aprofundar o compromisso entre reflexão e ação que caracteriza a sua obra. Para ele, é preciso confrontar e superar a ideia de democracia como um simples jogo competitivo pelo poder político.

Martins, Marcos Francisco. Gramsci, os intelectuais e suas funções científico-filosófica, educativo-cultural e política. Pro-Posições, v. 22, n. 3, p. 131-148, 2011.

Passos, Rodrigo Duarte Fernandes dos . Gramsci e seu "infinito laboratório". Informe Econômico (UFPI), v. 12, p. 49-51, 2011.

Ramos, Leonardo. “Notas sobre os processos de resistência ao sistema G7/8.” Conjuntura Internacional, vol. 8, no. 7 (2011): 12-20. [Link].

Abstract: Buscando contribuir para o resgate do pensamento gramsciano no campo da Economia Política Global, o presente artigo apresenta uma análise crítica dos processos de resistência ao sistema G7/8 em um contexto de globalização da resistência. Neste processo, buscar-se-á fazer algumas considerações críticas acerca das potencialidades e limites emancipatórios de tais movimentos de protesto e resistência ao sistema G7/8.

Semeraro, Giovanni; OLIVEIRA, Marcos Marques de; SILVA, Percival Tavares da, Leitão, Sônia Nogueira (orgs.). Gramsci e os movimentos populares. Niterói: UFF, 2011.

Simionatto, Ivete. “Marxismo gramsciano e Serviço Social: interlocuções mais que necessárias.” Revista Em Pauta, n.26. Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro-UERJ, Rio de Janeiro (2011): 17-34.

Further Clarifications about the Last Entry (Was Gramsci a Marxist?)

After the last entry, I received some criticisms and questions via facebook. Therefore, I think, further clarifications would be useful for all of us.

Following the question, Was Gramsci a Marxist?, Ibrahim Efe asked whether or not Marx himself was a Marxist. As far as I know, Marx is believed to have said that "if anything is certain, it is that I myself am not a Marxist." However, perhaps my formulation of the question was not very correct. Actually, what I was trying to ask was whether or not Gramsci was successful in overcoming the liberal-idealist philosophy of Benedetto Croce - the idealist philosopher who had a significant influence on Gramsci's early thinking, that is, before he came into contact with Marxism. I was interested in that question because to a certain extent, I think, this is a common problem for many thinkers/intellectuals/philosophers.

Then Alphan joined the discussion and said: "To utilise Cox's words: the pertinent question is not: Is Gramsci a marxist, rather it is: do the inferences which he has drawn from Marx help towards understanding the historical phenomenon that was the very object of his inquiry. Surely he differed from the historical economists and had a tendency towards the historical materialist elements in Marx's work."

Then I answered as follows: "Yes, but to what extent was it the inferences he has drawn from Croce, or to what extent from Marx help towards understanding the historical phenomenon that was the very object of his inquiry? Sometimes, we think that we are utilizing the ideas, concepts of a certain philosopher, a certain philosophical system, and criticizing others, but rarely do we realize that we actually in a way reproduce the philosophical system or the philosopher we criticize. In some ways, I know that perhaps it is not a very important question because in the final analysis you're right. Probably what matters more is whether or not it helps us toward understanding (and maybe also changing) the social/political phenomena that is the object of our inquiry. But also, sometimes the boundaries or the border lines between different theories, different philosophers and philosophical systems get blurred so considerably, it even becomes meaningless to continue speaking with the old concepts, such as marxist, idealist, materialist, etc. I think I saw this problem in Carl Schmitt's critique of liberal democracy as well. When you read Carl Schmitt's criticisms, and then see how he tries to differentiate his approach, you see that he cannot really succeed in that; he cannot escape liberal democracy. Also, like Jürgen Habermas continues to call himself a Marxist. Zizek calls himself a Marxist as well. But then, what is the limit of Marxism? Can you deny everything, change or ignore many essential core elements of Marxism, and still consider yourself a marxist? I mean, perhaps you still can, but what is the purpose anyway? Why would you bother about that?"

And I added: "Furthermore, I think it's also about being fair to the philosophers whom we criticize. I think it's not just/fair that we give a lot of credits to Marx in influencing Gramsci's thought, but not Croce."

Alphan: "I dont kow Feyzullah. Gramsci is a very complex personality as far as I understood. Of course he had ties with Croce, for example the concept of passive revolution is directly taken from his writings. I guess Gramsci was busy in moving beyond Marxist orthodoxy by opening new paths. And I think in this way he also tried to integrate Croce to his writings. I said he is a complex human being, for example he had Sorel in mind whilst writing about the "historic bloc", but Sorel only touches the topic of "social myths" that move history like the trade union activism or the general strike."

"Furthermore, if my memory is not misleading me, Gramsci also knew well Croce's interest in Vico and I even remmember that Pareto helped Gramsci while he was in prison by sending money. So at the final analysis I agree with you that in understanding and explaining the development of a philosophers thought we should try to 'phantasise' as Vico puts his life and the influences which had an impact on his writings. In this respect, i do think that Croce had a profound impact on his personal and philosophical development and singling out Marx as the only "mentor" is a misleading idea."