Gramsci’s Common Sense: Inequality and Its Narratives

Description

Acknowledged as one of the classics of twentieth-century Marxism, Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks contains a rich and nuanced theorization of class that provides insights that extend far beyond economic inequality. In Gramsci's Common Sense Kate Crehan offers new ways to understand the many forms that structural inequality can take, including in regards to race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. Presupposing no previous knowledge of Gramsci on the part of the reader, she introduces the Prison Notebooks and provides an overview of Gramsci’s notions of subalternity, intellectuals, and common sense, putting them in relation to the work of thinkers such as Bourdieu, Arendt, Spivak, and Said. In the case studies of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements, Crehan theorizes the complex relationships between the experience of inequality, exploitation, and oppression, as well as the construction of political narratives. Gramsci's Common Sense is an accessible and concise introduction to a key Marxist thinker whose works illuminate the increasing inequality in the twenty-first century. Preface ix Abbreviations xv Part I. Subalternity, Intellectuals, and Common Sense 1. Subalternity 3 2. Intellectuals 18 3. Common Sense 43 4. What Subalterns Know 59 Part II. Case Studies 5. Adam Smith: A Bourgeois, Organic Intellectual? 81 6. The Common Sense of the Tea Party 118 7. Common Sense, Good Sense, and Occupy 146 Conclusion. Reading Gramsci in the Twenty-First Century 184 Bibliography 199 Index 207