During the past nine months a number of publications related to Gramsci have been sent to us or brought to our attention by members of the International Gramsci Society. We are providing here a description of these publications. See also the bibliographical update by Guido Liguori in the Italian language section of this issue.
Antonio Gramsci. Lettere dal carcere. 1926-1930. 2 vols. Ed. Antonio A. Santucci. Palermo: Sellerio Editore, 1996.
Thirty years have passed since the publication of the complete critical edition of Gramsci's letters from prison prepared by Sergio Caprioglio and Elsa Fubini (Turin: Einaudi, 1965). In the meantime, a number of additional letters written by Gramsci during his incarceration have come to light. Furthermore, scholars and researchers have, in a variety of ways, greatly enhanced our interpretation of Gramsci's letters and our understanding of the context of their composition. The need for a new edition that would embody the many discoveries and insights garnered over the past three decades has been widely recognized for quite some time. For anglophone readers, this need was addressed by Frank Rosengarten's edition of the Letters from Prison (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994). Now, Antonio Santucci has provided us with a philologically rigorous and critically thorough edition of Gramsci's prison letters in their original language. It is virtually impossible to overstate the importance of Santucci's new edition both for the general reader and the specialized scholar.
"The present edition," Antonio Santucci explains in his preface, "contains a total of 494 letters written by Gramsci during the period of his detention. I have decided, however, that 16 of these letters should be distinguished from the rest and placed in Appendix 1. These sixteen letters, in fact, consist of petitions addressed to judicial, ministerial, and governmental authorities--these texts have a significant documentary value but they are of a different kind from the body of the private correspondence. This leaves a total of 478 letters; an addition of 50 letters with respect to the edition published by Einaudi in 1965." Santucci also restored some omissions and corrected a number of errors that occurred in the transcription and typsetting of the text of the earlier edition.
Santucci, moreover, enriched his edition with the reproduction of some other important documents. These are gathered in Appendix 2, the contents of which are described in the preface: "Appendix 2 contains 12 letters to Gramsci by Tatiana and Giulia Schucht, Giuseppe Berti, and Ruggero Grieco, as well as a letter which Umberto Cosmo sent to Sraffa (in which he responds to [END PAGE 18] questions concerning Dante which had been passed on to him from Gramsci). This selection of letters reproduced in their entirety, is meant to enable the reader to reconstruct first-hand certain important exchanges of letters involving Gramsci that have been the subject of recurrent discussions and controversies." Many more passages from other relevant letters, most significant among them letters by Tatiana Schucht and Piero Sraffa, are quoted in the critical apparatus of Santucci's edition.
Other notable features of this very handsomely produced, attractive two-volume edition, include: an extremely valuable introductory essay, a critical apparatus that is packed with important information and yet does not interfere with the reading of the main text, a detailed chronology of Gramsci's life, and indexes. Antonio Santucci's edition of the Lettere dal carcere--much like Valentino Gerratana's masterful edition of the Quaderni--represents a major milestone in the study and dissemination of Gramsci's life and thought.
Antonio Gramsci. Gefängnisbriefe. Vol. I: Briefwechsel mit Giulia Schucht. Ed. Ursula Apitzsch. Hamburg: Argument-Verl. and Frankfurt/Main: Cooperative- Verl., 1995.
This is the first of the four projected volumes of a critical edition in German of the complete correspondence of Gramsci during his years of detention and incarceration. Unlike other editions of Gramsci's prison letters, this one reproduces the texts of the letters written to Gramsci as well as those written by him. The first volume, which opens with a substantial introductory essay by Ursula Apitzsch and a forward by Mimma Paulesu Quercioli, contains the entire correspondence between Gramsci and his wife Giulia Schucht between 1926 and 1937.
Table of contents:
A. Einleitender Teil
Ursula Apitzsch: "Gramscis Briefe aus dem Gefängnis: Kritische Theorie der Selbskonstruktion des Menschen"
Mimma Paulesu Quercioli: "Erinnerungen an Giulia"
B. Briefe: November 1926 -- Januar 1937
Kapitel I: Rom und Ustica 1926/27
Kapitel II: Mailand 1927/28
Kapitel III: Turi 1928-1933
Kapitel IV: Formia/Rom 1935-1937
Anhang. Unveröffentlichte Briefe Giulia Schuchts an Antonio Gramsci
C. Index der Briefe
D. Verzeichnis der Abkürzungen und Siglen
Other scholars and researchers, besides Ursula Apitzsch, who participated in the preparation of this volume include Elisabeth Schweiger, Peter Kamerer, Armin Bernhard, and Eleonora Beltrani. The [END PAGE 19] editorial board overseeing the entire project is composed of Ursula Apitzsch, Peter Kamerer, Aldo Natoli, and Mimma Paulesu Quercioli.
Antonio Gramsci: Clásico de la Filosofía Política. A special issue of the Mexican periodical Dialéctica, Vol. 17, No. 26 (1994).
The various essays in this special issue of the quarterly, Dialéctica, which is entirely devoted to Gramsci (and edited in collaboration with Istituto Gramsci of Rome), are centered around a common theme, as Dora Kanoussi explains in her introduction: "Los trabajos que se presentan aquí son parte de este intento de seguir nuevas hipótesis de interpretacíon de la obra gramsciana. Los ensayos de por sí afines, como se dará cuenta el lector, tienen un eje común, pensamos consistente en el gran tema de la hegemonía como el del americanismo, de la reforma intelectual y moral, del conformismo y del individuo. Y todo para analizar la cuestión de si Gramsci da o intenta dar respuestas que en la época contemporánea tienen sentido."
Table of contents:
Gabriel Vargas Lozano: "Presentacíon: Gramsci, hoy, en América Latina"
Dora Kanoussi: "Introducción"
Giuseppe Vacca: "Gramsci en nuestro tiempo. Hegemonía e interdependencia"
Francesca Izzo: "Gramsci, intérprete de lo moderno"
Claudia Mancina: "Individualidad y conformismo"
Michele Ciliberto: "Renacimiento y Reforma en los Cuadernos de Gramsci"
Alfredo Salsano: "El corporativismo tecnocrático en una perspectiva internacional"
Mario Teló: "Gramsci, el nuevo capitalismo y el problema de la modernización"
Gianni Francioni: "Gramsci entre Croce y Bujarin: sobre la estructura de los Cuadernos 10 y 11"
Silvia Disegni (ed.). Un Gramsci ancora sconosciuto? A special section of the Italian review Il Cannocchiale: Rivista di Studi Filosofici, No. 3 (September- December 1995)
Half the issue of Il Cannocchiale (no. 3) is devoted to an inquiry conducted by Silvia Disegni on the status of Gramsci's work and thought in a variety of fields (politics, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, the theater, history, and literary criticism) and in different countries (with special attention to Italy, France, and the United States). The results of Disegni's project appear in the form of a series of interviews, each one which focuses on a single topic. The interviews are reproduced in a manner that retains the colloquial and lively tones of conversation; but they are also carefully edited, so that they have the coherence and thematic integrity of individual articles.
Table of contents:
Brunella Antomarini: "Prefazione" [END PAGE 20]
Silvia Disegni: "Introduzione: Un Gramsci ancora sconosciuto?"
Giuseppe Vacca: "Anni '90: Gramsci politico nel mondo"
Giorgio Baratta: "Nuove interpretazioni gramsciane in Italia"
Alberto Asor Rosa: "Anni '70: Gramsci e la cultura"
Joseph A. Buttigieg: "La fortuna di Gramsci negli Stati Uniti"
Tullio De Mauro: "Gramsci e la linguistica"
Franco Consiglio: "Gramsci e la filosofia"
Alberto Cirese: "Il contributo di Gramsci alla antropologia" Dario Fo: "Gramsci e la cultura popolare nel teatro"
Rosario Villari: "Anni '50-'70: Gramsci e la storia"
Alberto Lecco: "Gramsci e il gramscismo culturale del Pci"
Jacqueline Risset: "Francia anni '70: Gramsci e la critica letteraria"
Peter Gran. Beyond Eurocentrism: A New View of Modern World History. Syracuse, N. Y. : Syracuse University Press, 1996.
Peter Gran's recent book is not about Gramsci but it contains much that is of interest to students of Gramsci's work and thought. In his comparative study of modern world history and in his critique of the Eurocentrism of mainstream historiography, Gran employs a number of Gramscian approaches and categories--among them, hegemony, the analysis of folklore and, most importantly, the treatment of the "Southern question." [END PAGE 21] The blurb on the back cover of the book provides the following broad outline of Gran's study:
Eurocentrism influences virtually all established historical writing. With the rise of Prussia and, by extension, Europe, eurocentrism became the dominant paradigm for world history.
Employing the approaches of Gramsci and Foucault, Peter Gran proposes a reconceptualization of world history. He challenges the traditional convention of relying on totalitarian or democratic functions of a particular state to explain and understand relationships of authority and resistance in a number of national contexts. Gran maintains that there is no single developmental model but diverse forms of hegemony that emerged out of the political crisis following the penetration of capitalism into each nation.
In making comparisons between seemingly disparate and distinctive nations and by questioning established canons of comparative inquiry, Peter Gran encourages people to recognize the similarities between the West and non-West nations.
In his introductory chapter, "Eurocentrism and the Study of World History", Peter Gran discusses at considerable length the reasons why and the ways in which he employed Gramsci's ideas in his study. Elsewhere in the book he also deals with Gramsci's interpretation of Italian history as well as his unique contribution to the critical analysis of the "southern question."
Table of contents:
1. Eurocentrism and the Study of World History
2. "Russian Road": The Russian and Soviet Experience, 1861-1990
3. The "Russian Road" in the Middle East: Iradi History, 1869-1990
4. The "Italian Road" in Italy: The Risorgimento to the Present, 1870-1990
5. The "Italian Road" in Asia: India, 1861-1990
6. The "Italian Road" in Latin America: Mexico, 1876-1990
7. The "Tribal-Ethnic Road" in Europe: Albania, 1878-1990 8. The "Tribal-Ethnic Road" in Africa: Belgian Congo/Zaire, 1885-1990
9. Bourgeois Democracy in Great Britain, 1880-1990
10. Bourgeois Democracy in the United States of America, 1877-1990
11. Conclusion
Giuseppe Vacca. Vida y Pensamiento de Gramsci. Mexico, D. F.: Plaza y Valdés, S. A. de C. V., 1995.
This book by Giuseppe Vacca--translated from Italian with an introduction by Dora Kanoussi--is the product of an initiative undertaken by the Departamento de Política y Cultura de la UAM- Xochimilco which plans to publish a series of works on the history of leftist thought and twentieth- century culture. In addition to a "Prologo" by Ernesto Soto Reyes and the "Introduccion" by Dora Kanoussi, the book consists of three chapters:
1. La interpretación de Gramsci en la segunda postguerra
2. Gramsci 1926-1937: La línea de sombra en las relaciones con el Comintern y el partido
3. Togliatti Editor de las Cartas y de los Cuadernos de la Carcel
Hiromi Fujioka has informed us that the Tokyo Gramsci Society has translated into Japanese The Antonio Gramsci Reader. Selected Writings: 1916-1935, edited by David Forgacs. The Japanese edition has been published in Tokyo: Ochanomizu- Shobô, 1995.
Roger-Pol Droit, "La bibliothèque transparente" in Le Monde, 8 March 1996.
This is an interesting review-article on the most recently published volume of the complete critical edition in French of the Prison Notebooks--i.e. Antonio Gramsci, Cahiers de Prison: Cahiers 1-5, ed. Robert Paris; trans. M. Aymard and F. Bouillot (Paris: Gallimard, 1996).