This book is a real treasure trove, bringing together some deep dives into the work of Antonio Gramsci, drawing from the journal _Rethinking Marxism_. Since its start in 1988, this journal has been a leading voice in critical Marxian thought, always exploring ideas from a perspective that isn't stuck in rigid determinism or dogma. Given the journal's consistent, broad, and critical focus on Gramsci's work, it's fair to say their record is pretty unique among English-language publications. The very title, "Rethinking Gramsci," is a lovely nod to the journal, but it also points to something bigger: the ongoing process of understanding Gramsci's ideas across different political and historical backdrops. It also highlights the exciting new phase of Gramscian scholarship made possible by the project to translate Gramsci's complete _Prison Notebooks_ into English. There's been a real "world-wide Gramsci renaissance" happening, especially since around 1989, and Gramsci has truly popped out as a significant figure in the revitalization of Marxism. He's even been called "perhaps the most well-known and influential Italian thinker of the [twentieth] century". Just think about it – the international bibliography of his work has nearly 16,000 titles in at least 27 languages! Why all this attention? Well, Gramsci's way of thinking is wonderfully open and transdisciplinary. He really resists swapping out concrete analysis of social and political life for overly simple theoretical models. This makes his work continuously relevant for understanding the complexities of modern politics and society. As Benedetto Croce put it way back in 1947, Gramsci was trying to form a perspective that was "adequate to the problems of the present". And Stuart Hall, a key figure in cultural studies, wisely noted that it's not that Gramsci has all the ready-made answers for us today, but rather that thinking about our own problems "in a Gramscian way" offers truly valuable insights into analyzing the nature of political life and the specific historical moment we're in. Now, here's a crucial point often highlighted in these sources: we shouldn't just lift Gramsci's analysis of politics directly and plop it onto our current situation. Instead, the task is to "translate" his philosophical and theoretical insights to analyze the changing conditions of our present. This idea of "translating" theoretical language from one context to another is actually Gramscian itself, emphasizing a continuous rethinking of past and present circumstances and adapting our theoretical perspectives as things change. This ability of Gramsci's ideas to generate analysis of situations beyond his own time is precisely why he's seen as a genuine classic thinker – someone whose work endures and remains a basis for dialogue across generations, despite being rooted in another era. So, what kind of juicy topics does this volume dive into? The essays here cover a range of issues in Gramsci's work, written by scholars from diverse academic disciplines. The collection really showcases Gramsci's growing importance, the multidisciplinary nature of his contributions to Marxian theory, and his relevance to current debates in political and social theory. Let's look at some of the key areas explored: **Rethinking Marxism Through Gramsci:** One of the most significant contributions from Gramsci, highlighted in these sources, is his systematic rethinking of Marxism itself. He offered a consistent critique of formulations that were positivist and determinist. Gramsci felt that positivism and economic determinism actually weakened Marxism by separating philosophy from practical activity. They relied on abstract methods that developed universal principles external to human practice, overlooking the specific details of history and politics. This, he believed, obscured political life and hindered radical action. Instead, Gramsci aimed for a historicist method, separating social research from speculative or objectivist notions and focusing on practical politics and history. He called his approach the "philosophy of praxis," where abstract ideas are expressed in historical language and account for concrete situations and activity. He even described this method as "living philology," which means carefully identifying specific facts in their unique historical individuality and systematically outlining the practical standards for research. This perspective rejects fatalistic evolutionisms, objectivisms, and any idea of history having false guarantees. Gramsci was deeply concerned with epistemology – how we know what we know – and saw it as vital to Marxism's hegemonic project. He rejected the idea of one single, real world and recognized that "the world" exists in multiple apprehensions. This means there isn't one overarching, universal standard of truth; truths are plural, differing between worldviews. This distinctively Marxist epistemological standpoint, for Gramsci, required not just recognizing other viewpoints but constantly examining them as active social forces. He argued that prevalent bourgeois epistemologies like empiricism, positivism, and rationalism helped support the hegemony of the capitalist class structure by elevating bourgeois individualism as "truth". He saw these adopted epistemologies within Marxism as a "theoretical fifth column," hindering its development and the potential for social revolution. His critique of dogmatism is directly linked to his alternative epistemology, which values insights from alternative theories and encourages continuous critical engagement. **Key Gramscian Concepts Explored in the Volume:** Several major concepts from Gramsci's work get detailed attention: 1. **Hegemony:** This is probably Gramsci's most famous concept. The volume looks into its sources, which is a point of scholarly debate. Sources for his concept include Italian socialists, leading Bolsheviks like Lenin and Bukharin, Benedetto Croce (particularly his idea of "ethico-political history"), and Machiavelli. Gramsci translated Croce's concept into his philosophy of praxis paradigm to understand the expansion of hegemony. Hegemony, for Gramsci, isn't just about domination or coercion; it involves gaining consent and organizing political alignment. It has an epistemological significance because creating a new hegemonic apparatus involves creating a new ideological terrain, reforming consciousness, and changing methods of knowing. This means it's a "fact of knowledge, a philosophical fact". Neo-Gramscian perspectives apply this concept to international political economy, analyzing global politics by focusing on social forces, production relations, the state, and the global economic order. There's discussion about the ethical dimension of hegemony and whether the concept can be effectively applied beyond the national context. Some scholars explore its relation to the dialectic of identity and difference and the concept of the historical bloc. 2. **The Subaltern:** Gramsci was deeply interested in subaltern groups, those historically marginalized or subordinated in society. His interest was threefold: developing a method for analyzing subaltern history, writing an actual history of these groups, and formulating a practical, revolutionary strategy for their liberation. He approached this with a multidisciplinary view, weaving together political, social, intellectual, cultural, philosophical, religious, and economic analysis. He saw the study of history, theory, and practice as unified in his "philosophy of praxis". A widely discussed question related to this is Gayatri Spivak's "Can the Subaltern Speak?". While Gramsci laid crucial groundwork for understanding the subaltern, Spivak's work, often drawing on Marx and Derrida, raises important questions about representation and the potential for complicity in Western discourse. Gramsci's view of the subaltern is complex, moving beyond simple victimhood to recognize how subaltern groups are implicated in existing power structures through both coercion and consent. Rethinking the subaltern in a Gramscian way is linked to socialist education and the process of transforming the subaltern from a "thing" into a "historical person". 3. **Common Sense:** This is another fascinating concept Gramsci explored. For him, common sense isn't a neatly unified set of ideas, but rather a fragmented and often contradictory mix of beliefs, values, and practices drawn from various parts of society like law, religion, family, schools, and media. While it helps perpetuate existing social practices, it also holds the potential for different ways of understanding society and subjectivity. Thinking about common sense in a Gramscian way involves analyzing the material reality of culture, politics, and tradition. The concept suggests a critique of older ideas of ideology as simply monolithic "false consciousness". A Gramscian-inspired idea like "capitalist common sense" can help us understand how everyday practices foreground economic relations, but this idea must account for the concept's multiform and contradictory nature. To apply Gramsci's ideas on common sense today, we need to reconstruct how it functioned in his time and context rather than simply transferring his account directly. "Good sense" for Gramsci involves historically accounting for dominant positions and mapping the layers of archaic and contemporary ideas in common sense. **The Importance of the Prison Notebooks Translation:** A major theme throughout these sources is the monumental project by Joseph A. Buttigieg to translate Gramsci's complete _Prison Notebooks_ into English. Until this critical edition, English readers primarily relied on selections, which, while valuable, only offered partial views of Gramsci's work. The complete translation, based on the Italian critical edition, makes the entire set of notebooks available, including revisions and cross-references, along with extensive explanatory notes and critical apparatus. This translation is so important because Gramsci's notes are fragmentary, tentative, and deeply interwoven. Reading the complete, contextualized notebooks allows scholars to discover "a new Gramsci," encountering familiar concepts in different contexts and seeing how his ideas developed and changed over time. Buttigieg's work isn't just a linguistic transfer; it's a form of cultural and political analysis, bringing Gramsci's complex arguments, rooted in specific historical debates and contexts (like his critiques of Croce or Bukharin), to life for contemporary readers who might otherwise miss the nuances. Crucially, Buttigieg argues that we shouldn't try to smooth over or systematize the fragmentary nature of the notebooks. This fragmentation isn't an obstacle; it reflects Gramsci's open-ended, questioning mode of inquiry and his resistance to defining a closed system of thought. It mirrors his belief that reality and truth are complex, involving reciprocal relations rather than simple cause-and-effect chains or predetermined totalities. For example, Buttigieg highlights Gramsci's seemingly small references to "Cuvier's little bone" to show how Gramsci critiqued the positivist, totalizing methodology adopted by some intellectuals and orthodox Marxists, favoring a more nuanced understanding of historical processes. The fragmentary nature is seen not as a lack, but as a positive expression of the complexity and nonbeing ("truth") of reality that resists being forced into a fixed, predetermined structure. The translation makes Gramsci's work, which was intensely "worldly" and engaged with the politics and culture of his time, accessible to a wider audience. This accessibility is key to fostering the broad discussion and debate that Gramsci himself valued, helping to democratize understanding rather than confining his insights to a specialized elite. The project is seen as "liberating" because it allows readers to engage fully with Gramsci's most significant thinking, seeing how his core concepts functioned in his own detailed critiques and analyses. **Gramsci's Place in Modern and Postmodern Thought:** The volume also grapples with Gramsci's philosophical position and his relationship to contemporary thought, including postmodernism. Some arguments suggest Gramsci prefigured postmodern ideas, pointing to notes that might imply knowledge is grounded in myth or metanarratives, or that truth is linked to power. His questioning of traditional objectivity and his linking of hegemony and knowledge might also seem to align with postmodern concerns. However, a more comprehensive reading, as argued in the sources, suggests Gramsci remained a critical modernist. He retained concepts like epistemological realism, objectivity, and integral history. While acknowledging the constructed aspects of knowledge and ideology, he maintained a distinction between knowledge/science and ideology/religion, a distinction crucial for critique. He believed in a reality independent of the observer. Even when discussing common sense and folklore, he saw them as materials for developing a coherent worldview through critique and a globalizing discourse, rather than simply valuing fragmented, local knowledges as sufficient in themselves. This nuanced position is seen as fundamentally different from identifying truth solely with power or arguing that objects of knowledge are purely constituted by narrative or discourse. **Wider Applications:** Thinking "in a Gramscian way" has influenced various fields. Beyond Marxist theory and political philosophy, his work informs cultural studies, socialist education, studies of trade unionism, explorations of feminism and culture, neo-Gramscian approaches in international relations and political economy, and Subaltern Studies focusing on regions like South Asia and Latin America. His ideas are seen in dialogue, and sometimes tension, with poststructuralist thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, and Laclau & Mouffe, particularly concerning power, subjectivity, and the critique of totalizing thought. **Further Ideas and Questions to Explore:** This exploration of Gramsci and the "rethinking" project opens up many fascinating avenues for continued thought! - **Deep Dive into Key Concepts:** The volume touches on many concepts, but each could be explored further. What are the nuances of Gramsci's "historical bloc"? How does his idea of "passive revolution" help us understand contemporary social and political change? What does it mean to be an "organic intellectual" in today's world? - **Gramsci in Specific Contexts:** How are scholars around the world currently "translating" Gramsci's insights to understand specific national or regional political and social dynamics? How does his work illuminate issues of race, gender, and sexuality in particular contexts, building on the suggestions made in the volume? - **Comparing Gramsci to Other Thinkers:** The book compares Gramsci to Croce, Bukharin, Marx, Lenin, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Hegel, and touches on Althusser, Foucault, Derrida, Spivak, and others. Exploring these comparisons in more detail could reveal much about the unique contributions and limitations of Gramsci's thought. For example, how exactly does his notion of dialectic differ from Hegel's or Croce's, and why is this difference significant? - **The Challenge of "Translation":** Considering Gramsci's own view of translation as cultural and political analysis, what are the biggest challenges and possibilities in "translating" his ideas to contemporary issues like globalization, digital culture, or new forms of political organization? - **Gramsci and Contemporary Political Practice:** How can Gramscian insights be practically applied to contemporary political struggles, social movements, or educational initiatives aimed at fostering critical consciousness and agency? - **The Ongoing Work of Rethinking:** As the sources emphasize, Gramsci's work is unfinished and invites continued engagement. How can readers contribute to this ongoing "rethinking" process in a way that honors Gramsci's non-dogmatic, contextual, and practical approach? Ultimately, engaging with "Rethinking Marxism and rethinking Gramsci" and the complete _Prison Notebooks_ offers a chance to grapple with one of the most complex and influential thinkers of the 20th century. It's a process of exploration that encourages us to think critically, contextually, and dialectically about the intertwined nature of economics, politics, and culture. It's not about finding easy answers, but about developing a sharper way to ask the necessary questions and, hopefully, find pathways for progressive change.