During the past six months a number of books, collections of essays, and articles on 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.
Antonio Gramsci. The Southern Question. Translation and Introduction by Pasquale Verdicchio. West Lafayette, IN.: Bordighera, 1995.
This new annotated translation into English of Gramsci's famous unfinished essay on the "Southern Question" is accompanied by an introductory essay in which Pasquale Verdicchio not only places Gramsci's text in its historical context but also explains its significance for the present time. He writes, among other things:
Gramsci's essay remains as provocative today as it was for its author, who, during ten years of political imprisonment, continued to meditate on subjects and relationships first proposed within the pages of The Southern Question. In the Quaderni del carcere . . . Gramsci elaborated a notable series of observations and commentary on Italian and world issues: the relationship between the city and the countryside (North/South), the potentially revolutionary alliance between Northern workers and Southern peasants, the role and position of intellectuals within the narrative spaces provided by the interaction of diverse polities. Testimony to this work's continued importance is Edward Said's recent observation that "Under-read and under-analyzed ["The Southern Question"] . . . goes beyond its tactical relevance to Italian politics in 1926. [It is] a prelude to The Prison Notebooks in which he gave, as his towering counterpart Lukacs did not, paramount focus to the territorial, spatial, geographical foundations of social life" (Culture and Imperialism, 48-49). My own purpose in re-introducing the work is to emphasize how Gramsci's analysis of social stratifications of Northern and Southern Italy in 1926 is relevant to current conversations about state formation, diasporas, and strategic alliances.
In addition to the essay on the "Southern Question," this handsomely produced slim volume also includes translations of two other short texts, namely, "Workers and Peasants" (from L'Ordine Nuovo of 3 January 1920) and Gramsci's letter of 12 September 1923 to the executive committee of the Italian Communist Party in which he discusses the founding of L'Unità--both texts are illustrative of the importance Gramsci attached to the Southern question.
Antonio Gramsci. Scritti di economia politica. Ed. Franco Consiglio & Fabio Frosini. Introd. Giorgio Lunghini. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 1994.
As is obvious from the title, the editors of this volume have brought together Gramsci's scattered writings on economics and political economy. In his introductory essay--"Gramsci critico dell'economia politica"--the economist Giorgio Lunghini prepares the ground for a careful analyses of Gramsci's conception (as it is articulated in a fragmentary manner and in disparate texts) of the relationship between economics and politics. The selections from Gramsci's writings are arranged in four major sections: [END PAGE 29] I. Economia e politica negli scritti precarcerari
1. I modelli e la realtà. 2. L'utopia liberale e il governo dell'economia. 3. La crisi in Italia e in Europa. 4. Le classi sociali e il fascismo.
II. Il capitalismop del dopo guerra
1. Passato e presente. 2. Americanismo e fordismo. Gli alti salari. 3. Fordismo e paesi di capitalismo arretrato. 4. Sulla crisi del '29. 5. Economia e corporativismo. 6. Lo Stato «veilleur de nuit». 7. Individualismo e uomo collettivo.
III. Critica dell'economismo
1. Causalismo e previsione. 2. Forze produttive e rapporti sociali. 3. Economismo, liberismo, sindicalismo teorico.
IV. Punti di meditazione sull'economia
1. Sulla teoria del valore-lavoro. 2. Regolarità e necessità. Il «mercato determinato». 3. Intorno al concetto di homo oeconomicus. 4. Il paese di Cuccagna. 5. Economia pura ed economia critica. 6. Il teorema delle proporzioni definite. 7. Sulla teoria dei costi comparati. 8. Filosofia, politica, economia.
Giorgio Baratta and Andrea Catone, eds. Antonio Gramsci e il "progresso intellettuale di massa." Milano: Edizioni Unicopli, 1995.
The majority of the essays collected in this volume were originally presented as papers at the international conference--"Antonio Gramsci: un progresso intellettuale di massa"--that was held at the University of Urbino on 16-18 November 1986. In their brief preface, the editors of this volume explain that their efforts were animated by Gramsci's perception of the unity of culture with politics and of the relationship between the intellectual advancement of the masses and social emancipation.
Table of contents:
Introduzione
Giorgio Baratta: Popolo, nazione, masse nel pensiero di Gramsci
Maria Bianca Luporini: Alle origini del «nazionale-popolare»
Pietro Angelini: Gramsci, de Martino e la crisi della scienza del folklore
Cesare Bermani: L'Ordine Nuovo e il canto sociale
Loris Belpassi: La religione: «una forma transitoria della cultura umana»
Ursula Apitsch: Lavoro, cultura ed educazione tra fordismo e fascismo
Gianguido Piazza: Metafore biologiche ed evoluzionistiche nel pensiero di Gramsci
Valentino Gerratana: Il concetto di egemonia nell'opera di A. Gramsci
Domenico Losurdo: Lotta culturale e organizzazione delle classi subalterne in Gramsci Fabio Frosini: Dall'ottimismo della volonta al pessimismo dell'intelligenza
Andrea Catone: La concezione della società socialista in A. Gramsci
Antonio Melis: Gramsci e l'America latina
This book was reviewed by Clara Gallini in the "Pensieri" section of Il Manifesto of 2 September 1995
John M. Cammett and Maria Luisa Righi. Bibliografia gramsciana: Supplement Updated to 1993. Roma: Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, 1995.
John Cammett's Bibliografia gramsciana, 1922-1988 (Roma: Editori Riuniti, 1991) listed more than seven thousand items--books, essays, newspaper articles, doctoral dissertations, etc.--in twenty-eight different languages on the life and thought of Antonio Gramsci. The recently published supplement "contains approximately 3400 entries in thirty-two different languages comprising a few [END PAGE 30] publications in five languages not included in the Bibliografia Gramsciana (Albanian,Bengali, Korean, Norwegian, and Sardinian)." Cammett also explains in his introduction that "about 46% of the entries [in this supplement] . . . consist of publications which appeared within the years comprised in the original Bibliografia Gramsciana (1922-1988) but were not therein included." Information on many of these entries came from Gramsci scholars (almost all of them members of the International Gramsci Society) scattered throughout the world and coversant in a wide variety of languages. Most of the entries of the supplement, however, consist of publications on Gramsci that have appeared between 1989 and 1993. How does one account for the enormous amount of writing and study that Gramsci continues to inspire? Surely, a significant amount of writing was associated with the centenary of Gramsci's birth. It might also be the case, however, as John Cammett points out, "that the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the crisis of Marxism in general facilitated a return to Gramsci's more 'open' or problematic form of that thinking--rather like Minerva's owl taking flight at dusk."
Some other interesting general observations from Cammett's introduction: "The total number of entries for both [bibliographic volumes--i.e., the first Bibliografia gramsciana and this supplement] is now more than 10,400 represented by 33 different languages. The quantitative changes in the numbers of publications per year remains proportionately similar to the figures given in the introduction of 1991. Only about 16% of the total number of entries appeared before 1966. Also, when the more recent statistics are considered, the 'breakthroughs' in numbers of 1965-69 and of 1975-79 remain as before: In 1965-69 there were a total of 957 publications compared to 331 in the earlier 5-year period; again in 1975-79 there were 2104 as compared to 1058 in 1970-74. After a decrease in the early 1980s, the number of items published per year has remained rather constant (i.e., at about the same level as that of 1975-79). With regard to the languages of the collection, those in Italian have fallen slightly from 62% to 58.6% (about 6000 in number), while those in other languages now amount to 41.4% (or about 4200). English remains the most frequent of the other languages with 11.8% (ca. 1200 entries) followed by French, Spanish, German, Japanese and Russian."
Researchers will undoubtedly be pleased to know that this volume contains the following set of tabulations and indexes:
Number of entries by language of publication
Index by language of publication and number of entry
Numbers of entries by year of publication Index by year and entry number (between 1923 and 1988)
Index of geographic places by name and entry number
Index of translators and editors by number of entry
Index of subjects by number of entry
Index of introductions & prefaces to Gramsci's works
Frequency of publications by Types
Reviews of works by Gramsci
Reviews of books on Gramsci
The volume also has two appendices that are particularly valuable to users of the first bibliographical volume; they are:
I. A list of errors with their corrections contained in the Bibliografia gramsciana, 1922-1988 [END PAGE 31]
II. List of introductions and prefaces to Gramsci's works contained in the Bibliografia gramsciana, 1922-1988
(This volume is not available for purchase at commercial bookstores. Copies may be obtained, however, directly from the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci in Rome for 20,000 It. lire.)
Hiroshi Matsuda and Tomihisa Suzuki, eds. Guramusi shisou no porifonii. (Polyphonic Approach to Gramsci's Thought/Appròccio Polifonico al Pensiero di Gramsci). Kyoto: Houritubunka, 1995.
This volume comprises the following six essays (all in Japanese) by different contributors in addition to the preface by the editors:
H. Matsuda (Ritumeikan Univ., Kyoto): "The Figure of Gramsci at the Turning Point"
T. Suzuki (Momoyama Univ., Osaka): "The Horizon of the 'Philosophy of Praxis'"
K. Katano (Keihou Univ., Osaka): "Reconstruction of the Theory of Hegemony. Around the Problem of Structure-Superstructure"
Ce Jan Phu (Korea Univ., Seoul): "Theory of Politics and Hegemony"
T. Nakamura (Ritumeikan Univ., Kyoto): "National Culture and Hegemony"
S. Kawakami (Chyou Univ., Tokyo): "Gramsci in Japan. Arrival Point of Studies on Prison Notebooks in Japan
Maria Luisa Righi, ed. Gramsci nel mondo. Roma: Fondazione Istituto Gramsci, 1995.
This volume contains many of the papers (some of them slightly modified or updated) that were delivered at the international conference of Gramsci studies (organized by the Gramsci Institute of Rome and sponsored by the region of Lazio) that was held in Formia on 24-28 October 1989. The essays, taken together, provide a very useful and interesting account of the state of Gramscian studies and of the status of Gramsci as a political and cultural figure in many parts of the world on the eve of the extraordinary events in central and eastern Europe that transformed the the political as well as the economic and cultural situation across the globe.
Table of contents:
Premessa
David Forgacs: Le edizioni inglesi di Gramsci
Joseph V. Femia: Gramsci e il problema del totalitarismo
Anne Showstack Sassoon: Perplessità e dialettica: il linguagio di Gramsci
Derek Boothman: Verso una ricostruzione delle note economiche di Gramsci
Georges Labica: La recezione di Gramsci in Francia: Gramsci e il Pcf
Andrè Tosel: I malintesi dell'egemonia. Gramsci in Francia (1965-1989)
Francesco Fernández Buey: Note per lo studio della diffusione dell'opera di Gramsci in Spagna
Wolfgang Fritz Haug: Tradurre Gramsci
Theodor Pinkus: Gramsci nei paesi di lingua tedesca
Gisela Wenzel: Sulle tracce di Gramsci nella Rft
Michael Grabek: Gramsci nella Rdt. Osservazioni su quattro decenni di pratiche interpretative selettive
Jannis Voulgaris: Gramsci in Grecia
Gert Sørensen: Gramsci e la Danimarca
Irina Grigor'eva: Presenza di Gramsci nella cultura sovietica
Valentino Gerratana: La prima edizione dei Quaderni del carcere
Michele Pistillo: Gramsci, l'Internazionale comunista, lo stalinismo
John D. Moore: Amici che Gramsci non incontrò. Le edizioni gramsciane della Columbia University Press
Joseph A. Buttigieg: La circolazione delle categorie gramsciane negli Stati Uniti [END PAGE 32]
John M. Cammett: La Bibliografia gramsciana
Frank Rosengarten: Alcune osservazioni su sei edizioni in lingua inglese degli scritti di Antonio Gramsci
Carlos Nelson Coutinho: La recezione di Gramsci in Brasile José Aricò: Il ruolo degli intelletuali argentini nella diffusione di Gramsci in America Latina
Dora Kanoussi: Gramsci in Messico
Tian Shigang: Studi gramsciani in Cina
Eisuke Takemura: Gramsci e il Giappone di oggi
Tahar Labib: Gramsci nel mondo arabo
Karl Von Holdt: Leggere Gramsci in Sudafrica
(This volume is not available for purchase at commercial bookstores. Copies may be obtained, however, directly from the Fondazione Istituto Gramsci in Rome for 20,000 It. Lire.)
Diana C. Coben: "Revisiting Gramsci" in Studies in the Education of Adults, vol. 27, no. 1 (April 1995), pp. 34-51.
Diana C. Coben: "Antonio Gramsci and the Education of Adults" in European Research Seminar: Adult Education and Social Change, European Society for Research into the Education of Adults (conference papers). Lahti, Finland, August 1994.
Gianfranco Corsini: "Gramsci agli esteri" in the "Noterelle e Schermaglie" section of Belfagor, vol. 50, no. 4 (31 July 1995), pp. 477-82.
This article contains some interesting information and reflections on the uses that Anglo-American critics have made of Gramscian ideas and categories in their analyses of popular culture and modern communications.
Guido Liguori: "Dewey, Gramsci e il «pragmatismo neogramsciano» di Cornel West" in Critica Marxista, no. 3 (1995), pp. 59-66. The descriptive subtitle of the essay: "La storia non lineare dei rapporti tra marxismo e pragmatismo. I punti di contatto e di divergenza tra Gramsci e Dewy. La «traduzione» originale di Gramsci operata da West per usare le categorie dei Quaderni negli Stati Uniti di oggi."
André Tosel: "Sur quelques distinctions gramsciennes: economie et politique, societé civile et Etat" in Le Pensee, no. 301 (1995), pp. 69-80.
Luiz Werneck Vianna: "O Ator e os Fatos: A Revolução Passiva e o Americanismo em Gramsci" in DADOS: Revista de Ciêcias Sociais, vol. 38, no. 2 (1995), pp. 181-235.
Abstract:
"The Actor and Facts: Passive Revolution and Americanism in Gramsci"
Addressing itself to Gramsci's works, this essay explores the nature of relations between the categories passive revolution and Americanism, analytical views which in the development of Gramscian thought actually cast facts as more important protagonists than the actor. It is argued that the interpretation of the first process of passive revolution studied by Gramsci--inaugurated by the historical watershed of 1789 and culminating when the bourgeoisie achieved [END PAGE 33] full political power, with the restoration of Louis XVIII to the throne--should be understood as paradigmatic in evaluating the second process--initiated by the Russian Revolution in 1917 and then gaining form with Americanism. While the text recognizes that, in Gramsci, Americanism displays elements which liken it to the Italian Risorgimento's "Hegelianism of moderates", it points up the new possibilities that Americanism opens for the actor who desires to arrive at a new synthesis not through catastrophic ruptures but rather through a movement of molecular accumulation that creates a new state of life "from the bottom", within the realm of sociability itself.