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Gramsci’s ‘Non-contemporaneity’
Reflections on Peter Thomas’s The Gramscian Moment
In: Historical MaterialismPeter D. Thomas’s book The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism draws us to reflect on a point that Gramsci’s interpreters have often neglected: the particular structure of the Prison Notebooks, i.e., the ways in which the text was constituted and, dependent on that, the fundamental methodological criteria for its interpretation. Thomas’s book is a consummate synthesis between the deep and detailed study of the Notebooks text and the need to reconstruct some order within; between close historical-philosophical assessment and theoretical proposal within contemporary Marxist (and para-Marxist) debate. Consequently, this book confronts us – as Gramsci’s present-day readers – with a task that no-one can face alone, but that is nonetheless extraordinarily urgent: the task of intervening in the debate within the post-modern and post-Marxist Left so that the link between Marxism and philosophy is resumed, starting out from Gramsci himself. In short: a revival of Marx through Gramsci, through – in turn – a return of the philosophy of praxis as Marxism for our own day.
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Aggio Alberto, Henriques Luiz S. & Vacca Giuseppe Gramsci no seu tempo 2010 Brasilia/Rio de Janeiro Fundação Astrojildo Pereira-Contraponto
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Anderson Perry The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci 1977 London New Left Books
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Anderson Perry Ambiguità di Gramsci 1978 Bari Laterza translated into Italian by Ingrid Pedroni
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Bianchi Alvaro O laboratório de Gramsci. Filosofia, História e Política 2008 São Paulo Alameda
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Cospito Giuseppe Il ritmo del pensiero. Per una lettura diacronica dei ‘Quaderni del carcere’ di Gramsci 2011 Naples Bibliopolis
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Daniele Chiara & Vacca Giuseppe Gramsci a Roma, Togliatti a Mosca. Il carteggio del 1926 1999 Turin Einaudi
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Francioni Gianni ‘Egemonia, società civile, Stato. Note per una lettura della teoria politica di Gramsci’ L’officina gramsciana. Ipotesi sulla struttura dei ‘Quaderni del carcere’ 1984 Naples Bibliopolis
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Francioni Gianni ‘Il bauletto inglese. Appunti per una storia dei “Quaderni” di Gramsci’ Studi storici 1992 33 4 713 41
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Frosini Fabio ‘Lenin e Althusser. Rileggendo “Contraddizione e surdeterminazione”’ Critica marxista 2006 44 6 31 9 II
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Giasi Francesco Gramsci nel suo tempo 2008 two volumes Rome Carocci
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Gramsci Antonio Gerratana Valentino Quaderni del carcere 1975 Turin Einaudi
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Loseff Lev V. On the Beneficence of Censorship: Aesopian Language in Modern Russian Literature 1984 Munich Verlag Otto Sagner in Kommission
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Mastroianni Giovanni ‘Il materialismo storico di N.I. Bucharin’ Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 1982 61 2 222 42
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Mastroianni Giovanni ‘Quattro punti da rivedere nel Gramsci dei “Quaderni”’ Giornale critico della filosofia italiana 1984 63 2 260 7
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Mordenti Raul Asor Rosa A. ‘“Quaderni del carcere” di A. Gramsci’ Letteratura italiana: Le opere 1996 Volume IV 2 Turin Einaudi
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Morton Adam D. Unravelling Gramsci: Hegemony and Passive Revolution in the Global Political Economy 2007 London Pluto Press
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Rapone Leonardo Trotskij e il fascismo 1978 Rome/Bari Laterza
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Rosengarten Frank ‘The Gramsci-Trotsky Question (1922–1932)’ Social Text 1984–5 6/7 11 65 95
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Saccarelli Emanuele Gramsci and Trotsky in the Shadow of Stalinism: The Political Theory and Practice of Opposition 2008 New York Routledge
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Schirru Giancarlo Giasi Francesco, Gualtieri Roberto & Pons Silvio ‘Nazionalpopolare’ Pensare la politica. Scritti per Giuseppe Vacca 2009 Rome Carocci
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Spriano Paolo Gramsci in carcere e il partito 1988 Rome Editrice l’Unità
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Thomas Peter D. ‘Althusser, Gramsci e la non contemporaneità del presente’ Critica marxista 2006 44 6 71 9 II
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Thomas Peter D. The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism, Historical Materialism 2009 Book Series, Leiden Brill
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Togliatti Palmiro Vacca Giuseppe Sul fascismo 2004 Rome/Bari Laterza
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Vacca Giuseppe La lezione del fascismo 2004 Togliatti 2004
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Vacca Giuseppe ‘Gramsci Studies since 1989’ Journal of Modern Italian Studies 2011 16 2 179 94
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Vacca Giuseppe Vita e pensieri di Antonio Gramsci, 1926–1937 2012 Turin Einaudi
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2
Q11, §27; Gramsci 1975, p. 1436.
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3
Anderson 1977.
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4
Anderson 1978.
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5
Francioni 1984.
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8
Thomas 2009, pp. XIX, 8–12.
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9
Cf. Thomas 2009, p. 445.
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10
Cf. Frosini 2006.
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11
Thomas 2009, p. 11.
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13
Cf. Thomas 2009, pp. 387–8.
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15
Thomas 2009, p. XIX.
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16
Thomas 2009, p. 39.
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17
Q7, §35; Gramsci 1975, p. 886.
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18
Q10 II, §12; Gramsci 1975, p. 1250.
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19
Thomas 2009, p. 38.
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22
In Poulantzas’s sense (cf. Thomas 2009, p. 193).
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23
Cf. Thomas 2009, pp. 226–7.
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25
Cf. Thomas 2009, pp. 382–3. ‘The identity of theory and praxis is a critical act, by means of which practice is demonstrated to be rational and necessary or theory to be realistic and rational’ (Q15, §22; Gramsci 1975, p. 1780). This paragraph is examined in depth and evaluated in an original manner by Thomas 2009, pp. 363–5, 380–3.
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26
Cf. Thomas 2009, pp. 358, 363.
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27
Thomas 2009, p. 383.
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28
Q10 II, §6; Gramsci 1975, p. 1245.
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31
Thomas 2009, p. 219, n. 48.
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33
Spriano 1988, pp. 72–3.
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34
Cf. Q1, §113; Gramsci 1975, pp. 100–1, and Q8, §207; Gramsci 1975, p. 1065.
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35
Thomas 2009, pp. 231–2.
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36
Gramsci 1975, pp. 891–2.
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37
Cf. Cospito 2011, pp. 228–44.
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38
Q7, §43; Gramsci 1975, p. 891.
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39
Spriano 1988, p. 160 (cf. also pp. 83–4).
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40
Q14, §77; Gramsci 1975, p. 1745.
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41
See for example Saccarelli 2008, pp. 82ff., where the main bibliography on this topic is summarised.
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42
Cf. Francioni 1992, p. 731, note.
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43
Tatiana Schucht to Julija Schucht, 5 May 1937, quoted in Vacca 2012, p. 324 (the letter is preserved in the Archive of the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, Rome, Carte G. Schucht, Corrispondenza 1937).
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46
Vacca 2012.
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47
Q6, §138; Gramsci 1975, pp. 801–2.
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49
See Mastroianni 1982 and 1984.
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50
Cf. Thomas 2009, p. 206, n. 21; and p. 219, n. 48. Cf. Rosengarten 1984–5, p. 79: ‘. . . the grudging and half-disparaging manner that characterizes most of [Gramsci’s] references to Trotsky in the Notebooks’.
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51
Rosengarten 1984–5, p. 79. And see Thomas 2009, p. 206, n. 21: ‘The terms of their [Gramsci’s and Trotsky’s] analyses are remarkably similar and complementary, in a fitting sense: while Trotsky provides a more detailed analysis of the weakness implicit in the state’s omnipotence in the East (as both apparatus and “political society”), Gramsci’s concepts of “civil society” and “hegemonic apparatus” provide a more sophisticated theoretical paradigm for grasping the implications for revolutionary strategy of what Trotsky described as the “heaviest reserves” of the bourgeoisie in the West’. See also, for a similar attitude: Bianchi 2008, pp. 216–51; Morton 2007, pp. 40, 65–6.
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52
Q1, §44; Gramsci 1975, p. 54.
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53
Q4, §52; Gramsci 1975, p. 489.
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54
On all this, see Rapone 1978, pp. 251–322.
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55
Q7, §10; Gramsci 1975, p. 859.
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56
Bianchi 2008, pp. 245, 251, correctly records the inverse relation of national and international moments in Gramsci and Trotsky. Nonetheless, he reduces it to a mere question of predominance, whereas it should be regarded as the signal of a different conception of space and time, which also involves a different conception of internationalism and nationality.
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57
Thomas 2009, p. 217.
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58
Gramsci 1975, pp. 1728–30.
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61
Thomas 2009, p. 308. And see also Thomas 2009, p. 448.
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63
See already Thomas 2006.
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64
Thomas 2009, p. 285. The time is ‘out of joint’: in the book there is a strategic use of Derrida, and I say ‘strategic’ to point to Thomas’s (clearly outlined even if not declared) intention to ‘play off’ the critical and materialist elements of Derrida’s thought (see the resort to the notion of ‘supplement’ (in Thomas 2009, p. 423 et passim)) against the deconstructionist trend.
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65
Thomas 2009, p. 285.
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66
See Thomas 2009, p. 222, the critical confrontation with Gerratana.
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67
Cf. Thomas 2009, pp. 145 and 165.
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68
Cf. Thomas 2009, p. 147.
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69
Thomas 2009, p. 285.
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70
Thomas 2009, p. 408. The same presupposition is behind Morton 2007.
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71
Q8, §25; Gramsci 1975, p. 957.
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73
Q4, §38; Gramsci 1975, p. 456.
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76
Q15, §62; Gramsci 1975, p. 1827.
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Gramsci’s ‘Non-contemporaneity’
Reflections on Peter Thomas’s The Gramscian Moment
In: Historical MaterialismPeter D. Thomas’s book The Gramscian Moment: Philosophy, Hegemony and Marxism draws us to reflect on a point that Gramsci’s interpreters have often neglected: the particular structure of the Prison Notebooks, i.e., the ways in which the text was constituted and, dependent on that, the fundamental methodological criteria for its interpretation. Thomas’s book is a consummate synthesis between the deep and detailed study of the Notebooks text and the need to reconstruct some order within; between close historical-philosophical assessment and theoretical proposal within contemporary Marxist (and para-Marxist) debate. Consequently, this book confronts us – as Gramsci’s present-day readers – with a task that no-one can face alone, but that is nonetheless extraordinarily urgent: the task of intervening in the debate within the post-modern and post-Marxist Left so that the link between Marxism and philosophy is resumed, starting out from Gramsci himself. In short: a revival of Marx through Gramsci, through – in turn – a return of the philosophy of praxis as Marxism for our own day.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 312 | 128 | 18 |
| Full Text Views | 57 | 9 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 61 | 16 | 2 |