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Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci

TL;DR: The first selection published from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks to be made available in Britain, and was originally published in the early 1970s as discussed by the authors, was the first publication of the Notebooks in the UK.
Abstract: Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935, are the work of one of the most original thinkers in twentieth century Europe. Gramsci has had a profound influence on debates about the relationship between politics and culture. His complex and fruitful approach to questions of ideology, power and change remains crucial for critical theory. This volume was the first selection published from the Notebooks to be made available in Britain, and was originally published in the early 1970s. It contains the most important of Gramsci's notebooks, including the texts of The Modern Prince, and Americanism and Fordism, and extensive notes on the state and civil society, Italian history and the role of intellectuals. 'Far the best informative apparatus available to any foreign language readership of Gramsci.' Perry Anderson, New Left Review 'A model of scholarship' New Statesman
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27 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the assumptions, agendas and relations of power that shaped Bill C-45, an Act to Amend the Criminal Code (criminal liability of organizations), revisions to the criminal code of Canada aimed at strengthening corporate criminal liability.
Abstract: This dissertation critically interrogates the assumptions, agendas and relations of power that shaped Bill C-45, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (criminal liability of organizations), revisions to the Criminal Code of Canada aimed at strengthening corporate criminal liability. Colloquially referred to as the Westray bill, the legislation was passed in the fall of 2003 in response to the deaths of twenty-six workers at the Westray mine in 1992, a disaster caused by unsafe and illegal working conditions. Using twenty-three semi-structured interviews with individuals with knowledge and insight into the evolution of Canada’s corporate criminal liability legislation, and transcripts from Canada’s Parliament regarding the enactment of this law, the dissertation critically explores the constitution of corporate criminal liability – the factors that produce legal categorizations of corporate harm and wrongdoing. Of particular interest are the official discourses that shaped conceptualizations of corporate crime and corporate criminal liability and how these discourses correspond to the broader social-political-economic context. Drawing theoretical inspiration from Foucauldian and neo-Marxist (Althusserian) literatures, the dissertation argues that particular legal, economic and cultural discourses shaped, but did not determine, corporate criminal liability in Canada. In turn, these discourses are constitutive of class struggles over the role of the corporate form in extracting surplus labour and accumulating capital, the results of which helped stabilize, reproduce and transform the class-based capitalist social formation. Overall, the dissertation suggests that the assumptions that animated Canada’s corporate criminal liability legislation and the meanings inscribed in its provisions throw serious doubt on its ability to hold corporations legally accountable for their harmful, anti-social acts. There is little reason to believe that the Westray bill will produce a crackdown on safety crimes, or seriously challenge corporations to address workplace injuries and death. While it will hold some corporations and corporate actors accountable – and thus far it has been the smallest and weakest – the primary causes of workplace injury and death (e.g., the tension between profit maximization and the costs of safety and the relative worth of workers/employees versus owners and investors) will continue.

33 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, an interpretive analysis elucidating fundam ental tensions of the 2001 No C hild L eft B ehind (N C L B ) A ct w ithin N ative-serving schools is presented.
Abstract: In this interpretive analysis elucidating fundam ental tensions o f the im plem entation o f the 2001 No C hild L eft B ehind (N C L B ) A ct w ithin N ative-serving schools, w e point to w ays in w hich N CLB further lim its the already contested sovereignty tribes exercise over how, and in what language their children are instructed. W e discuss issues related to the self-determination exercised by schools, som e problem atic cultural assum ptions inherent in the N CLB law, and the legal tension betw een N CLB and the 1990/1992 Native A m erican L anguages Act. Finally, we exam ine the detrim ental effects that NCLB accountability m easures could have on Navajo communities, and look at how the N avajo N ation has addressed sovereignty over tribal education in recent years vis-a-vis N CLB.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the liberal sensibilities (political correctness) of these Israelis combined with the ongoing violent struggles and dispossession result in a particular articulation that fantasises a removal of the local population, often without force, but somehow magically.
Abstract: Focusing on representations of violence in the national past among a hegemonic group of self proclaimed left‐wing, liberal Israeli Jews, this article illustrates one of the ways in which the settler colonial project is supported by such representations. In particular, the article theorises the ‘uncanny absence’ of the Palestinian/Arab ‘other’ in this nationalist imagination, arguing that the liberal sensibilities (political correctness) of these Israelis combined with the ongoing violent struggles and dispossession result in a particular articulation that fantasises a removal of the local population, often without force, but somehow magically. The essay makes comparisons between this inscription of nationalism, earlier Zionist expressions and similar circumstances in Australia, arguing that this expression of ‘uncanny absence’ may be indicative of a settler imagination more generally. The article shows the processes and techniques involved in presenting the past in a kibbutz‐affiliated high school history...

33 citations


Cites background from "Selections from the prison notebook..."

  • ...…the national standardised matriculation tests (bagrut) can be considered part of what Gramsci calls the ‘prize-giving’ ways in which the state obtains consent and collaboration (Gramsci, 1971, pp. 242, 247) as students and teachers conform to the requirements of their own success in the system....

    [...]

  • ...This is more than a theoretical issue or a matter of definition, it is precisely about the hegemonic (Gramsci, 1971) micro-processes that participate in the powerful construction of ‘truth’....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the authors argues that the digital universe appears to be speeding up, and that the function of time in the digital world is changing rapidly, as well as the nature of time itself.
Abstract: Of all the things computer technologies have changed, few are more fundamental than the effect on time of digital culture. Theorists such as Paul Virilio, Alice Rayner and others have argued that digital domains – still sometimes quaintly known as cyberspace – displace conventional notions of space and time, turning digital realms into virtually unlimited spaces that exist within a perpetual ‘now’. But even among the earliest formulations of computer technologies, the function of time was seen as significantly changed. ‘Time in the digital universe and time in our universe are governed by entirely different clocks,’ writes George Dyson in Turing’s Cathedral: The origins of the digital universe (2012: x). ‘To an observer in our universe,’ he writes ‘the digital universe appears to be speeding up’ (Dyson 2012: xi). As digital technologies are ever more closely connected to our every part of our daily life and integrated within our bodies, culture reflects the temporal effects of digital time. In hyper-connected, digitized culture, digital media have become an increasingly ubiquitous presence, such that the existence of a single moment in time is replaced by a continuous state of being. Take, for example, journalist Dan Lyons’s report from the 2012 International CES (the Consumer Electronics Show):

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examines the demographic categories in the first few US censuses, which are asymmetrical combinations of race and legal status not mandated by the US Constitution and suggests that politicians draw on widespread social categories when creating census categories, showing how state and social influences interact to create the information in censuses.
Abstract: This paper examines the demographic categories in the first few US censuses, which are asymmetrical combinations of race and legal status not mandated by the US Constitution. State actors explicitly introduced and revised these categories; however, these state actors successfully introduced these categories into the census only when they were already widespread throughout society. Thus, more generally, the paper points to flaws in a “state-centered” view of information gathering, which stresses how state actors create census categories that, in turn, shape social conditions as they become subsequently widespread. In contrast, this paper suggests that politicians draw on widespread social categories when creating census categories, showing how state and social influences interact to create the information in censuses.

33 citations