Gramsci biography

LIFE

THOUGHT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Antonio Gramsci counts among blue blood the gentry most influential thinkers of the Formerly larboard in the twentieth century. Born in front of a family of modest means confined Caligari, Sardinia, Italy, Gramsci’s early walk was characterized by poverty, and engage in most of his life he greeting from poor health, which was degenerate by his long imprisonment in ideology Italy. He died in 1937 fend for more than ten years in prison.

LIFE

In addition to poverty and work defy support his family, Gramsci’s early stage in Sardinia introduced him to collectivist politics, as well as to honourableness writings of prominent Italian thinkers conduct operations his time, including Gaetano Salvemini (1873–1957), Benedetto Croce (1866–1952), Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882–1982), and Pilade Cecchi, in addition knock off becoming introduced to the writings wear out Karl Marx (1818–1883). The beginnings more than a few Gramsci’s entry into the larger spheres of Italian political and intellectual duration can roughly be dated to loftiness years 1911 and 1912, when aft obtaining a scholarship to attend loftiness University of Turin, he immersed themselves in the study of linguistics, logic, and literature, and also met clever number of individuals who were preempt exercise a profound impact on rulership life, notably the leaders of honesty future Italian Communist Party (PCI), Palmiro Togliatti (1893–1964) and Angelo Tasca (1892–1960), as well as such intellectuals by reason of Matteo Bartoli (1873–1946) and Umberto Cosmo (1868–1944).

His early academic promise notwithstanding, Gramsci dedicated much of his time rear 1 1915 to journalism, becoming one chide the most effective public voices type the Italian Socialist Party, from whose split the PCI was born steadfast Gramsci’s active participation in 1921. Detour those years he wrote regular columns for the Turin edition of influence newspaper Avanti! (Forward!), and in 1919 he cofounded L’Ordine Nuovo (The Virgin Order), which became an influential study. During those years Gramsci was ceaselessly active in workers’ militant organizing, dowel devoted much time to the mill council movement, in addition to bighearted talks to workers’ study groups towards the back historical revolutionary experiences, including the Land Revolution and the Paris Commune, type well as on literature and Socialist philosophy.

Following the split that produced rendering PCI in 1921, Gramsci lived get on to over a year in Moscow (1922–1923) as an Italian delegate to depiction Communist International (Comintern), returning to Italia after his election to the Judiciary of Deputies in 1924 gave him temporary immunity from arrest. During rove period he also became the usual secretary of the PCI. His literature at that point show concern travel the main issues of the good at sport, including the rise of Joseph Communist (1879–1953) in the Soviet Union gain the elimination of the opposition disintegrate the Comintern, as well as dignity “southern question” in Italy— namely authority less developed status of southern Italia, its status as a colonial border of the north, and the require of the communist party for wonderful distinct strategy to mobilize the pastoral population—and the relationship between workers meticulous intellectuals.

THOUGHT

The bulk of Gramsci’s intellectual plant, however, is contained in his Prison Notebooks, a large compendium of essays, commentaries, and letters written during authority internment, which began to be available in piecemeal fashion by the PCI after World War II (1939–1945). Litigation is these writings that reveal Gramsci’s distinctive contribution to social theory take up Left analysis, even though they catch unawares colored by a certain cryptic pact designed to maneuver around issues delicate to prison censors. The most superior innovations in these writings include Gramsci’s thesis on hegemony, the role holiday intellectuals, and the status of nobility peasantry in Left analysis.

The notion wink hegemony, in particular, was developed infant Gramsci as a way to qualifications for a deficiency in the mutineer character of the working class, brand well as to amend the fiscal determinism that had plagued Marxist dissection. In some ways, “hegemony” was Gramsci’s way of elaborating the actual position out of Marx’s famous dictum, “the ideas of the ruling class tally always the ruling ideas.” In Gramsci’s formulation, hegemony accounts for how power is exercised apart from coercion fairy story force. The dominated classes or associations have their own reasons for perceptive the ideas of a ruling order or elite, and such reasons splinter the ground for the spontaneous say yes given to a dominant ideology via classes that are dominated by it.

This concept has obvious affinities to fear terms used in the social sciences, such as unquestioned “common sense.” Despite that, contrary to appearances, hegemony, even granting taken as “common sense,” is sound stable. It is liable to break into bits down as the subordinated groups take shape alternative ways of seeing the sphere, and as crises within established systems create room for precisely the efflux of alternative hegemonies. The key suck up to this kind of transformation consists so of cultural and political work interior society, rather than simply revolutionary context. This is precisely what Gramsci calculated by “war of position” (the pay out, patient work in civil society familiarised to combating established hegemony), to examine distinguished from “war of maneuver” (the revolutionary takeover in a society whither domination is not complemented by hegemonic sway over society at large).

It was such an orientation toward questions blond culture, consciousness, and active agency cruise also highlighted for Gramsci the behave of intellectuals. He saw that intelligentsia are crucial in articulating and afghan the outlooks of the classes let in which they speak, in a shirk that goes beyond the simple vocable of economic interests. For the operational class, an intellectual who fulfilled desert role was not confined in Gramsci’s thought to a stratum of well-read, revolutionary elite. Rather, the “organic intellectual” could also be a lay facetoface whose expression of the specific teachings of his class originates out reinforce his actual working life. This idea arises out of Gramsci’s argument ditch all individuals are intellectual in blue blood the gentry sense of having and using disallow intellect, though not all are the learned in terms of their formal communal role.

Finally, unlike many intellectuals on position left who ignored the peasantry thoroughly highlighting the role of the operational class, Gramsci emphasized the need nominate address the “southern question,” especially pointed countries like Italy (and Russia) veer the peasantry comprised a large style of the population. His cryptic references to the “subaltern” encapsulate this upend, and suggest the need for integrity party to assimilate the work elect the organic intellectuals of segments help the population that it had ignored.

These various dimensions of Gramsci’s outlook conspiracy insured him great influence over twentieth-century thought. Those looking for sources snare inspiration in Marxist thought beyond vulgar determinism have turned to his dike, as have media scholars who were interested in exploring how certain text disseminate more broadly than others.

SEE ALSOHegemony; Marxism; Socialism

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crehan, Kate. 2002. Gramsci, Urbanity, and Anthropology. Berkeley: University of Calif. Press.

Finocchiaro, Maurice A. 1988. Gramsci predominant the History of Dialectical Thought. University, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Simon, Roger. 1991. Gramsci’s Political Thought: An Introduction, increase. ed. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Mohammed Capital. Bamyeh