Book cover titled "Language & Hegemony in Gramsci" by Peter Ives, featuring blue abstract design with curved lines.

Language and Hegemony in Gramsci

by Peter Ives

Language and Hegemony in Gramsci demonstrates how Gramsci’s writings on language illuminate his entire social and political thought. It documents Gramsci’s concern with language from his university studies in linguistics, where he initially derived his famous concept of hegemony, to his last prison notebook.

This title is out of print

  • January 2004
  • ISBN: 9781552661390
  • 218 pages

About the book

Language and Hegemony in Gramsci demonstrates how Gramsci’s writings on language illuminate his entire social and political thought. It documents Gramsci’s concern with language from his university studies in linguistics, where he initially derived his famous concept of hegemony, to his last prison notebook.

Hegemony has been seen as Gramsci’s most important contribution, but without knowledge of its linguistic roots, it is often misunderstood. It is only from the vantage point of Gramsci’s writings on language that the full explanatory power of hegemony and his unique combination of Marxist economic analysis and social critique can be fully appreciated. Ives uses Gramsci’s focus on language to introduce key ideas of hegemony, intellectuals, passive revolution, civil society and subalternity. Language and Hegemony in Gramsci shows how Gramsci’s theorization of power, language and politics addresses issues raised by post-modernism and the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau.

Author

Peter Ives

Peter Ives is professor of political science at the University of Winnipeg. He is the author of Gramsci’s Politics of Language and Language and Hegemony in Gramsci, and co-editor of Gramsci, Language and Translation and Language Policy and Political Theory. He has published in Rethinking Marxism, Political Studies, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy and Language Policy. He researches and writes on the politics of “global English” and bridging the disciplines of language policy and political theory. He has contributed articles to The Conversation on free speech and academic freedom, was on the editorial board of Rethinking Marxism for a decade and was on the editorial collective of Arbeiter Ring Press for many years.   

Contents

  • : Introduction
  • : Language and Social Theory: The Many Linguistic Turns
  • : Linguistics and Politics In Gramsci’s Italy
  • : Language and Hegemony in the Prison Notebooks
  • : Gramsci’s Key Concepts with Linguistic Enrichment
  • : Postmodernism, New Social Movements and Globalization: Implications for Social and Political Theory
  • : Bibliography
  • : Index

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