International Gramsci Journal

The Centrality of the State in Neoliberal Times

Peter Mayo — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 20:10:30 PDT

One of the greatest myths being propagated in this contemporary neoliberal scenario is that the nation state is no longer the main force in this period characterized by the intensification of globalization. Deregulation was brought in by governments to expedite the process where various forms of provision, private and formerly public, were left to the market. And yet the credit crunch starkly laid bare the folly of this conviction as new forms of regulation are being put in place with the state, the national state, intervening to bail out banks and other institutions in this situation. I consider this an opportune moment to look at the function of the state and assess its role within the contemporary scenario of ‘hegemonic globalization’, to adopt the term used by the Portuguese sociologist, Boaventura de Sousa Santos (de Sousa Santos in Dale and Robertson, 2004: 151), and its underlying ideology, neoliberalism. I will look at different theoretical insights and then end this excursus with a discussion of Gramsci’s conceptualization of the state and its implications for present day politics.

Resisting Abstraction: Gramsci’s Historiological Method

Nigel Greaves — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 20:10:29 PDT

This article argues that the writings of Antonio Gramsci should be situated in their rightful social, philosophical, political, in short, 'historical' context. This is particularly true of his prison writing which is a rich resource but one which calls for delicate archaeological handling. It appears that Gramsci’s Marxism is unapologetically eclectic but this results in an integrated and surprisingly harmonious theoretical and practical approach to history and society. This can be brought to sharp focus only by close examination of the educational properties of Gramsci’s historical environment, the suggestions it makes, the perceptible possibilities it entails, that which blocks or impedes movement and progress, and so on. That is to say, Gramsci was not an abstract thinker. His thinking is grounded in the class war of the Italy of his time and, in turn, this was attuned to the broader struggle against capitalism in and beyond Italy's borders. This is arguably the way Gramsci would prefer to be remembered and indeed the context in which he would perhaps prefer to be utilised today. Reading Gramsci, therefore, requires knowing Gramsci. The problems encountered are an unfortunate consequence of the conditions in which he wrote but they can be overcome if we apply ‘Gramsci to Gramsci’.

The articles by Gramsci published in English in International Press Correspondence

Derek Boothman — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:55:32 PDT

The articles included here represent most of what Gramsci published in the Comintern journal International Press Correspondence, under his own name or one of his pseudonyms of the period, G. (sometimes Giovanni) Masci. 1 In much of this period Inprecorr was coming out more or less twice a week, with articles from all parts of the world, including from Russia, with articles written by the various Party and Union leaders. Even during the period of great polemics which basically started just before Lenin’s death and carried on over the whole of this period, the Inprecorr in its various languages of publication, carried articles giving all points of view written by all the participants in the controversies. This was true both of the Russian communists, so the Trotsky controversy was given full airing from both sides, and of those involved in other debates outside Russia. In Italy, for example, it was not only the extreme left of Amadeo Bordiga that was present in the Party, and that found space in the pages of Inprecorr, but also the right of Angelo Tasca – one of the Turin Ordine Nuovo group and, up to near the end of Gramsci’s stay in Moscow, one who had the ear of the Comintern leadership. And another on the right was Antonio Graziadei, an economist judged to hold a “revisionist” stance, whose views were expressed fully both in Inprecorr and in book International Press Correspondence came out regularly in Russian, French, German and English (with the abbreviation Inprecorr), and sometimes, it seems, also in a Spanish edition. The period of the articles published here ranges from 1922, up through Gramsci’s half-year stay in Vienna (December 1923 to May 1924), and on to the last period when, after his election as a parliamentary deputy, he was able to return to Italy on the basis of parliamentary immunity. With his new status as a deputy he could in theory evade the warrant that had been put out for his arrest in February 1923.

O Estado Novo do PT [Spanish]

Luiz Werneck Vianna — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:55:25 PDT

A crer nos indicadores dos dois períodos presidenciais de Fernando Henrique, mas, sobretudo, a partir do mandato de Lula, o capitalismo brasileiro encontrou um caminho de expansão e de intensificação da sua experiência. Contudo, tem sido agora que se vê conduzido por um projeto pluriclassista e com a definida intenção de favorecer uma reconciliação política com a história do país, contrariamente à administração anterior, mais homogênea em sua composição de interesses e decididamente refratária ao que entendia ser o legado patrimonial da nossa herança republicana.

Aggiornamento Bibliografia gramsciana Italia (primo semestre 2010)

Alessandro Errico — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:40:20 PDT

Aggiornamento Bibliografia gramsciana Italia (primo semestre 2010) (reproduced with permission of the International Gramsci Society) http://internationalgramscisociety.org/resources/recent_publications/index.html

Recent publicaitons in English on Gramsci

Charles M. Hawksley — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 18:40:19 PDT

Recent publications in English on Gramsci (reproduced with permission of the International Gramsci Society) http://internationalgramscisociety.org/resources/recent_publications/index.html

Cover page and contents, International Gramsci Journal No.3 2011

Charles M. Hawksley — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:15:22 PDT

Welcome to the International Gramsci Journal (IGJ) No. 3 of March 2011. IGJ is a new journal that only publishes online. The journal, or individual sections or papers, may be downloaded from our website: http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/research/gramsci-journal/ Each edition of IGJ has two parts. The Gramsci Notes section publishes short pieces of general interest about Gramscian thought, reproduced with permission from other sources. These are selected by the IGJ editor.

New phase of development and knowledge capitalism: Gramsci's historical revenge

Sergio Ordonez — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:00:25 PDT

This article argues that the tremendous timeliness of Gramscian thought resides in the appreciation that, at the current time, just as in the 1930s, the transition to a new phase of the development of capitalism, for which the term knowledge capitalism is proposed, is verifiable, for which the technological-productive fundamentals have thus far been developed without its projection having yet taken place in the superstructure. From this flows a double historical revenge of Gramscian thought, since, on the one hand, it provides a valuable theoretical instrument for understanding and taking advantage of historical change, and, on the other, it offers major political strategic principles that at the current time, based on forms of production and autonomous social organization of the subaltern groups and classes within knowledge capitalism, have the historical-social space to contribute to the construction of an alternative hegemony characteristic of these classes and groups. To delve into this question, the article has been divided in three sections. The first section presents Gramscian theoretical tools for understanding historical change; the second synthetically explains the distinctive features of the new phase of development and characterizes the moment of its current unfolding in light of the previously mentioned theoretical instruments, and the third section discusses postcapitalist forms of production and social organization that could lead to the formation of alternative hegemonic social blocs in the framework of the emergence of the new phase of development that is becoming a historical epoch.

Gramsci at the margins: subjectivity and subalternity in a theory of hegemony

Kylie Smith — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 22:00:24 PDT

In strictly political terms, the Gramscian concept of subalternity applies to those groups in society who are lacking autonomous political power. In Gramsci’s time these groups were easily identified, and much of the work around the concept of subalternity has centred on groups like peasants and the proletariat. But Gramsci also argued that subalternity existed on a broader scale than this, including people from different religions or cultures, or those existing at the margins of society. This aspect of Gramsci’s work is often overlooked, because many writers are interested in Gramsci’s political theory, which they use to analyse the way in which capitalism, as a structural system, has become hegemonic over time. The focus here is on the history of organised groups and their organised struggle. Hence, the emphasis is largely on white, male-oriented institutions of power. But Gramsci argued that hegemony did not exist merely at this level. Rather, he argued that hegemony comes from below, originating in the thoughts, beliefs and actions of everyday people who may or may not see themselves as part of organised groups. Hence, Gramsci was intensely aware of the way hegemony operated at a personal level. Capitalist hegemony was not, is not, possible, without a complete identification at the level of the self. This paper seeks to expand on some of Gramsci’s thinking in this area, in an attempt to understand the connections between the self and society in a theory of hegemony, where hegemony is considered a process based on leadership, rather than a state built on domination. It is through an analysis of what hegemonic processes exclude (or make subaltern), that we can expand our understanding of how hegemony works, and of how it may be resisted.

Croce, Gentile and Gramsci on Translation [English]

Domenico Jervolino — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:55:19 PDT

The activity of translating is as old as the entire history of human civilization. Yet, according to some, it is only in the second half of the twentieth century that translation became the subject of a specific discipline, or, more correctly, that it became the subject of a broad field of interdisciplinary studies, from linguistics to semantics, from literary criticism to comparative literature, and, more recently, even philosophy itself. This is so to the extent that the first scholars of translation in France have even spoken of a tournant philosophique de la traduction [philosophical turn of translation].1 It is natural to look back and attempt to delineate a history of the ideas about translation elaborated in the remote and in the near past once the theme of translation has imposed itself in various ways in the arena of contemporary culture, and therefore to find important precursors and ancestors, even though their contribution was limited often either to fragments or to opinions expressed in the margins of works devoted to other subjects or to comments about their translations.

Croce, Gentile e Gramsci sulla traduzione [Italian]

Domenico Jervolino — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:55:19 PDT

L’attività del tradurre è tanto antica quanto la storia della civiltà umana nel suo complesso, ma il tema della traduzione solo nella seconda metà del secolo ventesimo è diventato oggetto di una disciplina specifica, secondo alcuni, o meglio di un ampio campo di studi interdisciplinari, dalla linguistica alla semiotica, dalla critica letteraria alla letteratura comparata, alla stessa filosofia in anni più recenti, sino al punto che si è potuto parlare di un tournant philosophique de la traduction da parte di uno dei primi studiosi di traduzione in Francia1. Comunque, una volta impostosi a vario titolo il tema della traduzione nella cultura contemporanea, è stato naturale guardarsi indietro e cercare di delineare una storia delle idee sulla traduzione nel passato remoto e prossimo, trovando in questo modo precursori o antenati illustri, anche se spesso il loro contributo si è limitato a frammenti o ad opinioni espresse in margine ad opere dedicate ad altri argomenti, oppure come chiose dei propri lavori di traduzione.

The history of the subaltern groups: Rome and the Middle Ages in Italy

Camilla Bellina — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:55:18 PDT

Given the international interest, debate and controversy on questions of the subaltern classes and of relationships of hegemony, it has been thought useful to present here a number of sections (conventionally called paragraphs) from the Prison Notebooks that are as yet awaiting publication in an English translation. They will of course come out in Joseph Buttigieg’s ongoing project of the translation in their entirety of the Gerratana edition of the Notebooks, and publication of some of Gramsci’s first drafts of the pieces here included are imminent. In other cases, however, the first drafts by Gramsci, especially the paragraphs discussing Ettore Ciccotti’s articles, have actually been published in the second volume of the Buttigieg edition,1 not to mention of course editions in languages other than English. Apart from Gramsci’s general discussion of the emergence of the subaltern classes and their struggle for recognition and even some sort of hegemony, what readers may find of further interest is the way in which he reworks and elaborates his arguments either in detail or at the level of what often appear relatively minor specifications.

Some Notes on the Tragic Writing of Antonio Gramsci [English]

Manuel S. Almeida Rodriguez — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:55:17 PDT

Abstract This essay considers the tragic elements present in Gramsci’s prison writings, including both the Prison Notebooks and the Prison Letters. It highlights specific moments in both the notebooks and the letters in which this tragic element presents itself. These include the interpretation of the often cited motto of ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will’ present in the notebooks, of the für ewig character of the notebooks as expressed in an important prison letter, and of other important passages. Also, it shows how the tragic element expresses at the same time the fusion of Gramsci’s personal tragedy with the political tragedy of the Left in general. Finally, the essay treats on how this tragic element transcends itself in the claim for the fertilizing of the social terrain for a better future.

Escritura trágica bajo el fascismo: Gramsci a los 70 años de su muerte [Spanish]

Manuel S. Almeida Rodriguez — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:55:16 PDT

Debemos ser cuidadosos al interpretar las palabras de Romain Rolland que Gramsci repite numerosas veces en sus cuadernos carcelarios y que hace suyas como lema personal, ‘pesimismo de la inteligencia, optimismo de la voluntad’. Hay que evitar caer en la entendible tentación de enfatizar la segunda parte (optimismo de la voluntad), como si hiciese todo el sentido del mundo darle mayor importancia al elemento de la voluntad porque Gramsci dió importancia al marxismo como una filosofía de la praxis. Aclarando de entrada, la interpretación del marxismo propuesta por Gramsci (1975: 435, 1434, entre otros ejemplos) es que éste es una concepción de mundo autónoma, comprensiva, totalizadora, capaz de interpretar el mundo con miras a una progresiva transformación de éste. En su interpretación del marxismo como una filosofía de la praxis el componente teórico no es por un lado reducido ni a un elemento instrumental y justificador de cualquier práctica (Gramsci 1975: 1386), ni por otro lado se reduce a especulación suprahistórica. Es por eso que la concepción de Gramsci del marxismo como una filosofía de la praxis se va hilvanando a través de una crítica paralela tanto al historicismo de Croce como al materialismo vulgar de Bujarín, presentes de forma más sostenida en los cuadernos 10 y 11. Crítica a Croce que se debe tomar muy en cuenta porque si bien Gramsci rechaza un marxismo determinista, no debe mover automáticamente al intérprete a ver en la posición gramsciana una postura voluntarista o subjetivista. Por eso Gramsci (por ej., 1975: 1579) repetidas veces en los Cuadernos, menciona el planteamiento de Marx a los efectos de que una sociedad no se plantea las tareas para las cuales no existen la condiciones objetivas para su solución, condiciones que a su vez deben ser ‘educadas’. En última instancia, el pensamiento de Gramsci es abiertamente, históricamente, dialéctico. Su mayor énfasis a través de la totalidad de los Cuadernos es alrededor de una de las preocupaciones más centrales y más antiguas en el pensamiento político, las relaciones entre dirigentes y dirigidos o gobernantes y gobernados, y cómo éstas se expresan a través de todo el tejido social, inclusive en esas esferas sociales menos sospechadas

Cover page and contents, International Gramsci Journal No.2 2010

Charles M. Hawksley — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 21:55:13 PDT

The International Gramsci Journal (IGJ) is produced in electronic format. It aims to publish scholarship on aspects of Antonio Gramsci’s life and writings, and on contemporary applications of his theories to the modern world. IGJ aims to publish in Italian, Spanish and English. We publish both peer-reviewed articles and shorter “Gramsci notes”. In the future we aim to publish book reviews of works that employ Gramscian concepts and theories. As a new journal IGJ relies on the efforts of a small group of colleagues in Australia, but we aim to be a global journal. To make IGJ work we need your help. If you have a piece of writing that you think would be suitable for IGJ, or have students who you could encourage to submit to IGJ, we would welcome the opportunity to review and publish new scholarship or shorter pieces in translation. IGJ No. 2 for the first time has original research in Italian, Spanish and English. On behalf of the editorial team I hope that you find something of interest to you in IGJ No. 2.

Del Gobierno del Pueblo a la Rebelión Popular: Historia del Partido Comunista 1970–1990 (Review)

Rene Leal Hurtado — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:13:38 PST

Review of Del Gobierno del Pueblo a la Rebelión Popular: Historia del Partido Comunista 1970–1990. Francisco Herreros, Editorial Siglo xxi, Santiago, Chile, 2005.

Hegemony and Education. Gramsci, Post-Marxism and Radical Democracy Revisited (Review)

Mike Donaldson — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:13:37 PST

Review of Hegemony and Education. Gramsci, Post-Marxism and Radical Democracy Revisited Deb J. Hill, Lexington Books, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc, Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth, 2007.

Security Intelligence and Left Intellectuals: Australia, 1970

Rowan Cahill — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:13:36 PST

In 1970 the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) identified the ideas of Antonio Gramsci as one of the root causes of dissent, opposition and cultural ferment. This document is an example of ASIO’s concern about Marxist intellectuals and their Gramscian links.

Antonio Gramsci and Fund of Knowledge: Organic Ethnographers of Knowledge in Workers' Centres

Joseph P. Zanoni — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:12:25 PST

Participants of workers’ centres, led by organic ethnographers of knowledge, will be engaged in a critique of spontaneous funds of knowledge and the development of judgment criteria to guide workers from Gramsci’s conception of common sense to good sense in the discovery of knowledge through praxis.

Contribuciones De Gramsci Al Cambio Social En Chile: De La Declinación De La Ideología Pos Moderna A La Re-Emergencia De La Izquierda

Rene Leal Hurtado — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:12:24 PST

Este trabajo argumenta que las teorías social demócratas y pos modernas han retardado las posibilidades de cambio social y han sido sustento ideológico del neo liberalismo en Chile. Sin embargo, el aumento de la lucha social muestra una creciente declinación de su influencia social y de su legitimidad política. Constatada esta declinación, el análisis de clases y el concepto de hegemonía de Gramsci que debatieron con el socialismo pos moderno, re-orienta el debate de la izquierda en torno a la lucha social y la construcción de un proyecto de superación del neo liberalismo.