How have Gramscian categories been appropriated in our global context and how do they continue to be relevant for the contemporary moment? With the spread of his ideas throughout the world, the name of Antonio Gramsci has acquired an impressively wide range of uses and meanings. Building on the experience of Rethinking Gramsci 2023, this year’s edition explores the reception and interpretation of Gramscian insights around the globe. It did not take long for Gramsci’s innovative interpellation of orthodox Marxism to transcend its original context and gain centrality within what would become Western Marxism. The reception of his ideas among the English Marxists, for example, helped to give shape to the cultural Marxism of figures like Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall. Furthermore, Gramscian ideas formed the foundation of Post-Marxist thought and practice, as expounded in seminal works like Mouffe and Laclau’s Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Subaltern scholars from South Asia, for their part, imbued Gramsci’s concept of the subaltern with new connotations and applications, while postcolonial thinkers gave regional inflections to his legacy and re-signified it within their own particular struggles. Rethinking Gramsci 2024: Global Perspectives on Gramsci intends to explore the myriad uses and meanings of Gramsci from various perspectives and contexts throughout the world. We encourage theoretical and empirical approaches from any number of possible standpoints, be they academic, practical, or artistic.
The conference will be held in hybrid mode from May 8th to May 10th 2024. The in-person talks will be at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Montreal, Canada.
