Bieler, Andreas and Adam David Morton, “The Deficits of Discourse in IPE: turning base metal into gold?,” International Studies Quarterly, 52:1 (2008): pp. 103-28.
Boothman, Derek. “The Sources for Gramsci's Concept of Hegemony.” Rethinking Marxism, vol. 20, no. 2 (2008): 201 - 15. [Link].
Abstract: This article attempts to single out key sources, avoiding any unilateral attribution, for the concept of hegemony as developed by Antonio Gramsci throughout the entire course of his prison writings. Among these sources one may point to the well-established (albeit usually ignored) use of the term by Italian socialists when Gramsci was a young journalist. Later, when he was a member of the Comintern Executive in Moscow (1922–3), the term circulated freely among leading Bolsheviks (Lenin included), as Bukharin confirms explicitly, and shortly afterward began to appear in Gramsci's letters and other writings. Major inputs, as seen from the Prison Notebooks, also stem from Benedetto Croce and from various aspects of Machiavelli, including language. Gramsci's university linguistics studies also proved important, with the questions of linguistic substrata (which foreshadow later sociolinguistic notions) and the dialect/national language relation being crucial. Overriding all, however, is Gramsci's reading of the concrete situation.
Bruff, Ian. Culture and Consensus in European Varieties of Capitalism: A “Common Sense” Analysis. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan – International Political Economy Series, 2008). [Link].
In this book Ian Bruff challenges the hitherto dominant varieties of capitalism literature on the role of consensus in European political economies. He argues that its institutionalist perspective renders it unable to analyze consensus adequately, for this can be achieved only with a consideration of culture. Furthermore, Antonio Gramsci’s discussions of “common sense” provide the conceptual apparatus necessary for analyzing the integral role of culture and consensus in the national variety of capitalism. This framework is then applied to two milestones in the trajectories of the Dutch and German political economies – the Wassenaar and Alliance for Jobs processes – and extensive interview data is drawn upon to make the case. The post-2001 period in both countries is also assessed.
Bruff, Ian. “Germany’s Shift from the Alliance for Jobs to Agenda 2010: The Role of Transnationalizing German Capital”. Debatte, vol. 16, no.3 (2008): 273-89. [Link].
This article seeks to go beyond the explanations offered thus far for Germany's dramatic shift from the Alliance for Jobs process to the Agenda 2010 reforms. The literature oscillates, and vacillates, between structural (“economic”) and agential (“political”) explanations, which is the consequence of the separation of institutions from the society they are part of. In contrast, Antonio Gramsci's writings on “common sense” provide us with the conceptual tools necessary for studying how the relationship between state and society evolved in the 1990s and 2000s. I argue that the increasing transnationalization of German capital in the 1990s modified its worldview—its version of common sense—and these twin, inextricably related, changes created the conditions for the potential detachment of a portion of social democracy from a traditional interpretation of the “social market economy”. Particularly important in this process was the New Social Market Economy Initiative, which saturated public debate after 2000 with a liberal, market-oriented version of common sense.
Cahill, Rowan. “Security Intelligence and Left Intellectuals: Australia, 1970.” International Gramsci Journal, no. 1 (2008). Link to journal.
Abstract: 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.
Casey, Gerrie and Paul C. Mishler. “John Cammett, Antonio Gramsci, and Anthropology.” Dialectical Anthropology, vol. 32, no. 3 (2008): 267-69.
Davidson, Alastair. “The Uses and Abuses of Gramsci.” Thesis Eleven, vol. 95, no. 1 (2008): 68-94.
Abstract: Antonio Gramsci is today the most translated Italian theorist. His theory has been used extensively in English language publications in cultural studies and international relations. This article examines the use, abuse and fruitful additions to Gramsci of Stuart Hall, Edward Saïd, Ranajit Guha, Robert Cox, Stephen Gill and Adam Morton. Its object is to examine their fidelity to what the mainstream Italian philology of Gramsci has written about his concepts and their order.
Davidson, Alastair. “Obituary for John Cammett: Organic Intellectual.” International Gramsci Journal, no. 1 (2008). Link to journal.
Abstract: John Cammett, died on July 30, 2008. Internationally known as a pioneering scholar of Antonio Gramsci, he studied the impact of Gramsci on the Italian Communist movement, which became the most significant aspect of his life’s work.
Donaldson, Mike. “Gramsci, Class and Post-Marxism.” International Gramsci Journal, no. 1 (2008). Link to journal.
Abstract: Often Gramsci is presented in the social sciences, particularly by post-Marxists, as a precursor of and justification for abandoning the concept of class. This is incorrect. This article outlines Gramsci’s ideas of class, class composition, formation and alliance which Gramsci based on a detailed, accurate reconnaissance of the Italy of his time.
Filippini, Michele. “The Discourse of the Social Sciences and Gramscian Thought” Lapsus Review, no. 3 (2008): 19-25. [published by Galatasaray University in Istambul].
Garrett, Paul Michael. “Thinking with the Sardinian: Antonio Gramsci and Social Work.” European Journal of Social Work, vol. 11, no. 3 (2008): 237-50.
Abstract: Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), who died over 70 years ago, produced a complex body of theorisation which is mostly ignored within social work. In this paper it is maintained that there are a number of obstacles presented for those reading Gramsci. Nonetheless, these obstacles should not deter us from trying to engage with Gramsci. After briefly outlining his biography, the article focuses on just two of his key thematic preoccupations. First, the related ideas of Americanism, Fordism and Taylorism; second, the concept of hegemony. Although conceding that there are problems with his work, it will be argued that these theoretical formulations continue to be of potential use and might aid our understanding of social work and related forms of activity during a period of neoliberal inspired transformations. Furthermore, thinking with Gramsci, and other social theorists, might enable the social professions to help construct counter hegemonic strategies.
Gran, Peter. The Rise of the Rich: A New View of Modern World History. 1st ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2008). [ISBN: 9780815631712].
Howson, Richard, and Kylie Smith, eds. Hegemony: Studies in Consensus and Coercion. (New York: Routledge, 2008). [ISBN: 9780415955447].
Table of Contents
Landy, Marcia. “Gramsci, Passive Revolution, and Media.” boundary 2, vol. 35, no. 3 (2008): 99-131.
Abstract: This article examines the work of philosopher Antonio Gramsci with regards to the implications of neoliberalism and globalization. The author uses Gramsci’s work to analyze the role of the media in creating a global consensus for a radical reorganization of economic policy as well as the war on terror led by the United States.
Martin, James. Piero Gobetti and the Politics of Liberal Revolution. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). [ISBN 9780230602748].
Abstract: Piero Gobetti was an astonishing figure. A radical liberal and fierce critic of Italian politics in the years after World War I, he was fascinated by the workers' struggles in his native Turin and by Gramsci's vision of a factory-based democracy. Gobetti proposed liberalism as an emancipatory theory grounded in social conflicts. "Revolutionary liberalism," as he called it, guided his opposition to Fascism and, following his untimely death at twenty-five, inspired key figures in the Italian Resistance. Accessible but critical, this volume is the first English-language study of Gobetti's political ideas and offers a balanced assessment of his enduring significance.
Contents:
1. Liberalism and the Italian Crisis
2. Idealism and Renewal
3. Liberty and Discipline: Gramsci and the Factory Council Movement
3. Liberal Revolution: Towards a New Elite
4. Contesting Fascism, Defending Liberalism
5. Politicizing Liberalism: Gobetti's Italian Legacy Liberty and Conflict
6. An 'Agonistic' Liberalism
Martin, James, ed. The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law, and the State. (New York: Verso, 2008). [ISBN: 9781844671991].
Abstract: Nicos Poulantzas was one of the leading Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, developing seminal analyses of the state and social classes during the crisis of monopoly capitalism. This volume brings together a wide selection of Poulantzas’ key writings in legal philosophy and political sociology, including some important pieces translated here for the first time. Articles include his early pieces on law, his studies of hegemony, authoritarianism, and social classes, and his debate on the state with Ralph Miliband and Ernesto Laclau.
McNally, Mark. “The Organization of Balance and Equilibrium in Gramsci’s Hegemony.” History of Political Thought, vol. 29, no. 4 (2008): 662-89.
Abstract: This article explores the relatively neglected usage of conceptions of balance and equilibrium in Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony by adopting a contextual approach to his writings that situates them in an intellectual and historical milieu in which the quest for 'equilibrium' had become one of the most important issues of the day. The first part of the article shows how the ideas of balance and equilibrium were developing among sources familiar to Gramsci, including Italian Fordism, the theorists of the Russian Revolution and neo-classical economics. The second part demonstrates how Gramsci developed these ideas within the framework of his theory of hegemony. The aim is not only to provide a new perspective on Gramsci's hegemony, but also to suggest that incorporating notions of balance and equilibrium into the theory will render it more coherent and realistic for its contemporary deployment in political and ideological analysis.
Shear, Boone W. “Gramsci, Intellectuals, and Academic Practice Today.” Rethinking Marxism, vol. 20, no. 1 (2008): 55 - 67. [Link].
Abstract: This essay follows a series of events on the campus of a public university in the Midwestern United States. By examining some of the contemporary political-economic and cultural conditions affecting universities, I explore the production of and constraints on intellectual practice. Building from Antonio Gramsci's conceptualization of intellectuals, I argue that academic intellectuals and academic practices are produced within a highly politicized institution in which hegemony is exercised, and I consider the possibilities of and limitations on resistance. I suggest that counterhegemonic practices are possible through politically engaged scholarship.
Thomas, Peter. “Immanence.” Historical Materialism, vol. 16, no. 1 (2008): 239-43.
Zanoni, Joseph P. “Antonio Gramsci and Fund of Knowledge: Organic Ethnographers of Knowledge in Workers' Centres.” International Gramsci Journal, no. 1 (2008). Link to journal.
Abstract: 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.
FRENCH
None to report.
GERMAN
Gramsci, Antonio, Gefängnisbriefe II - Briefwechsel mit Tatjana Schucht 1926-1930,
Herausgegeben von Ursula Apitzsch und Peter Kammerer. Argument Verlag Hamburg, 2008.
Gramsci, Antonio. Amerika und Europa, Studienausgabe, Gramsci Reader 2, Herausgegeben von Thomas Barfuss. Argument Verlag Hamburg, 2008.
Thomas, Peter, “Katharsis,” Das historisch-kritische Woerterbuch des Marxismus 7I, Berlin: InkriT, 2008.
JAPANESE
La Città Futura, Tokyo Gramsci Society Bulletin No. 42 (March 2008)
La Città Futura, Tokyo Gramsci Society Bulletin No. 43 (July 2008)
La Città Futura, Tokyo Gramsci Society Bulletin No. 44 (November 2008)
PORTUGUESE
Bianchi, Alvaro. O laboratório de Gramsci: História, Política e Filosofia. São Paulo: alameda, 2008,
SPANISH
Holst, John D. “Globalización Y Educación Gramsciana.” Docencia, vol. 8, no. 23 (2008): 69-74.
Hurtado, Rene Leal. “Contribuciones De Gramsci Al Cambio Social En Chile: De La Declinación De La Ideología Pos Moderna A La Re-Emergencia De La Izquierda.” International Gramsci Journal, no. 1 (2008). Link to journal.
Abstract: 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.
TURKSIH
Filippini, Michele. “The Discourse of the Social Sciences and Gramscian Thought,” in Lapsus review, published by Galatasaray University, Istambul, 3, 2008, pp. 19-25.