Gramsci on hegemony - best book(s)

[laptop]

What's the best book where Gramsci sets out the notion of hegemony?

Is it Prison Notebooks?

 

[butchersapron]

It's the only one.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

"Sets out" might be pushing it

 

[laptop]

"Sets out" might be pushing it

I was afraid it might be like that

 

[trashpony]

There's that bright green book which pads out his theory a bit (haven't read it for years so can't remember what it's called) but that's not bad

 

[Laney]

Ideological hegemony ‘lies fragmented and dispersed throughout his Quaderni del Carcere, waiting to be pieced together like an old jigsaw puzzle’.

Good luck!

ETA: http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm

 

[danny la rouge]

"Sets out" might be pushing it

 

[Bernie Gunther]

In the light of the recent Tory victory, and of the rise of the 'kippers, here's another thread that deserves a bump.

Anyone got anything else to recommend regarding Gramsci's ideas and their application in present time?

I'm vaguely aware the Podemos bunch have been influenced by this stuff for example.

 

[danny la rouge]

In the light of the recent Tory victory, and of the rise of the 'kippers, here's another thread that deserves a bump.

Anyone got anything else to recommend regarding Gramsci's ideas and their application in present time?

I'm vaguely aware the Podemos bunch have been influenced by this stuff for example.

The two books I'd recommend are Gramsci's Political Thought - An Introduction, by Roger Simon (1982) and A Gramsci Reader (David Forgacs, ed) 1988. They're old, but that's when I was reading Gramsci.

The first covers hegemony in two separate chapters, and in a chapter I still think of as valuable (chapter 7), uses Gramsci to look at Three Organic Crises in Britain. It's easy enough to go on and apply that to subsequent events.

The second is what it says: a selection of Gramsci texts and passages. But Gramsci isn't easy to read, partly because he was writing in deliberately obscurantist fashion while in prison, so it's useful to have read Roger Simon's book first.

Here's the Simon, with foreword by Stuart Hall. http://www.academia.edu/3673738/Gramsci_political_thought

 

[butchersapron]

From on old post of mine - slight difference of opinion with Danny:

If you want a decent basic (and i mean basic) one that outlines the general structure Roger Simon's Gramsci's Political Thought: An Introduction will do fine, you'll be able to spot his (Simon's) euro-communist leanings a mile off - easily avoided. For something with a bit more depth and that ties in his thought with his life and political activity Antonio A. Santucci's Gramsci is worth the effort. Steve Jones did one on him in the Routledge critical thinkers series - short and to the point. In the wanky philosopher vein there is also Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process by Joseph Femia. To dispel a few well worn myths i would also read the article Antonio Gramsci and the Bolshevization of the PCI by Thomas Bates.

Some newer ones now:
Gramsci and Trotsky in the Shadow of Stalinism: The Political Theory and Practice of Opposition - Emanuele Saccarelli
Gramsci’s Political Thought - Carlos Nelson Coutinho
The Gramscian Moment - Peter D. Thomas
Lenin and the Logic of Hegemony - Alan Shandro
Amadeo Bordiga and the Myth of Gramsci (very critical, excellent piece)
Gramsci and the history of dialectical thought - Maurice A.Finocchiaro.
Beyond Right and Left: Democratic Elitism in Mosca and Gramsci - same bloke

Oh yeah, almost forgot the classic The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci by Perry Anderson.

Loads more, but these are the field-setters right now really (ignored his growing use in International Relations btw)

 

[danny la rouge]

I'd agree Simon is a starting place only.

 

[purves grundy]

The Gramscian Moment - Peter D. Thomas

Blimey, I know he's well-respected and all but I found that close to unreadable... revelling in its own abstruseness

 

[butchersapron]

Here also is Reading Gramsci - Francisco Fernández Buey - not read but looks a good high level guide.

 

[purves grundy]

The Gramscian Moment - Peter D. Thomas

Blimey, I know he's well-respected and all but I found that close to unreadable... revelling in its own abstruseness

I had cause to pick this up again the other day and realised that it was more the bits on Althusser that were abstruse (and that's more my fault for not getting him) - excellent and illuminating stuff on Gramsci further on in that book.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

In the wanky philosopher vein there is also Gramsci's Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process by Joseph Femia.

This is probably my favourite book on Gramsci that I've read, I found it genuinely illuminating.

 

[chilango]

Bumping this in case there's anything else emerged ..

 

[Riklet]

Bumping this in case there's anything else emerged ..

You might well find this soundcloud episode on Gramsci from the lads at Desolation Radio useful, really interesting and concise (and funny - guaranteed you wont get that many places!) and also links it to modern Welsh/British politics. Im listening for a second time and it's brill.

Skip half an hour in if you want to get straight into the theory nitty gritty.

 

[Brainaddict]

Bumping this cos I'm reading prison notebooks and its tough going. I'm not very knowledgeable about Italian history, but perhaps am also not very interested in his particular interpretation of Italian history, though I suppose it leads to deeper insights later on. It sounds like the best thing to do is start with writings about Gramsci.

 

[PTK]

Gramsci wrote that the material world does not exist independent of human perceptions. He was thus an idealist, not a materialist.

 

[Brainaddict]

Gramsci wrote that the material world does not exist independent of human perceptions. He was thus an idealist, not a materialist.

I wonder if it's that simple though...

 

[Argonia]

How come his writings survive if he was writing in prison?

 

[purves grundy]

I wonder if it's that simple though...

It's not just that it's more complicated than that: to label Gramsci an idealist is simply false. You can certainly place him with confidence in the Marxist tradition, but he had a profound appreciation of the role that beliefs and ideas play alongside material forces in fomenting or constraining revolutionary action, and developed a conceptual vocabulary and style of thinking to suit.

I agree with you Brainaddict that tackling the Prison Notebooks isn't the best place to start with Gramsci. It's a matter of getting the hang of thinking things through in a Gramscian way, as Stuart Hall put it, rather than e.g. "learning Gramsci's theory". It's important to situate him and the development of his thought in the debates - including debates in Italian philosophy as well as wider Marxist discussions - and revolutionary ferment of his time. I found Mark McNally's edited collection of essays (imaginatively titled 'Antonio Gramsci') really useful in this regard - you can find it on the usual DL sites.

How come his writings survive if he was writing in prison?

They accompanied him to the clinic when he fell ill during his time in prison, and were smuggled out from there after his death.

 

[Brainaddict]

At the moment I'm going with Steve Jones because it is short, and have Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci because it is available in epub and pdfs should die. Let me know if either of these are a terrible (political or intellectual) error.

 

[purves grundy]

I'm not that familiar with the Steve Jones text but Anderson's 'Antinomies...' has achieved some level of notoriety today for the way it strips the nuance from Gramsci's conceptual development of state and society. It's like a sustained 'gotcha!', almost a parody in places. No good for an accurate introduction to Gramsci imo, but still worth a read simply because it's so widely read.

 

[Brainaddict]

I'm not that familiar with the Steve Jones text but Anderson's 'Antinomies...' has achieved some level of notoriety today for the way it strips the nuance from Gramsci's conceptual development of state and society. It's like a sustained 'gotcha!', almost a parody in places. No good for an accurate introduction to Gramsci imo, but still worth a read simply because it's so widely read.

Ah, thanks, perhaps I'll leave it till later then. Fucking pdfs tho

 

[PTK]

It's not just that it's more complicated than that: to label Gramsci an idealist is simply false. [. . .]

If he claimed that the material world did not exist independently of human perceptions, then he was an idealist. The world was here before humans, and will be here after humans are gone.

 

[purves grundy]

If he claimed that the material world did not exist independently of human perceptions, then he was an idealist. The world was here before humans, and will be here after humans are gone.

OK, so, given that Gramsci didn't make any such absurd claim, he wasn't an idealist. Tbh I'd see idealism in this context more about elevating theory above practice; transcending that dichotomy through the philosophy of praxis is Gramsci's greatest achievement.

 

[Brainaddict]

I read the more recent preface to Antimonies and it was a bit interesting - a summary of what he considers important about G's thought, plus a defence of his stance against the attack of The Gramsian Moment. But I was also reminded that I hate people arguing over political texts as though it is a game of the 'correct' reading, i.e. scriptural interpretation to uncover the real truth. I'd rather see more time spent arguing over what weapons or tools can be found in someone's thought, rather than the true meaning of the text. Too much to expect of academics I suppose.