Gramsci on Civil Society

Global English, Hegemony and Education: Lessons from Gramsci

“…Here I will not rehearse the more complex possible interpretations of in this ambiguous article 14 because he clearly moves beyond it in his prison writings where he stresses the always interconnected relations between civil society (where he seems here to suggest ‘language is formed by itself’) and the state (e.g. Buttigieg, 1995). He also integrates such concerns with his ideas on language, ‘common sense’, ‘good sense’, ideology and philosophy (see Coben, 2002; Ives, 2004b, pp.…”

Reviews

“…From San Juan, Jr.'s use of Gramsci's ''national-popular'' to critique imperialism and flaccid concepts of globalization in the context of the Philippines, to Dikici-Bilgin's analysis of Turkish ''civil society,'' Filc's analysis of populism in Israel, the three chapters (Leggett, Townsend, and Devine and Purdy) on New Labour in Britain, and Crehan's analysis of experimental art communities in London, clearly many scholars find Gramsci's writings incredibly powerful in analyzing contemporary politics in a host of very different contexts. Added to this is Ludwig's use of Gramsci to strengthen feminist state theory* although closer engagement with the secondary sources on Gramsci's notion of the integral state (e.g., Buci-Glucksman 1980;Buttigieg 1995;Fontana 2006;Thomas 2009) and specifically feminist work (Showstack Sassoon 1987) could perhaps take the REVIEWS 287 argument further. Where Filc is clearly employing a ''Gramsci'' read through the lens of Laclau, he still engages with Gramsci's texts much more directly than is often the case with followers of Laclau, regardless of the fact that we find the initial framework less convincing in terms of its assumptions about Gramsci. Schwartzmantel and, to a lesser degree, Femia are the most explicit in challenging the relevance of Gramsci's writings for today.…”

Human Rights as a Contingent Foundation: The Case of Physicians for Human Rights1

“…Although one should not identify Gramsci's civil society with the liberal conception of the private realm, the two do overlap. For the difference between Gramsci's understanding of civil society and the quotidian use of the term, as well as how it differs from the liberal conception of the private realm, consult Buttigieg (1995). 9.…”