ABSTRACT
For the most part this book will argue that Gramsci’s theories are relevant to the study of contemporary culture. However, you might reasonably ask whether it is not anachronistic to use the work of an early-twentiethcentury Marxist to analyse modern cultural forms and practices. Many of the categories that are central to Gramsci’s analysis (‘proletariat’, ‘peasantry’, ‘folklore’, ‘Fordism’) are less prominent or clearly defined than in his lifetime, and some of his observations on popular culture (for example on jazz and football) turned out to be very wide of the mark. Perhaps it is the case that his explanatory frameworks are equally specific to their period, and consequently outmoded? Later chapters will address the question of why, and how, we may use Gramsci’s work outside its historical and geographical ‘moment’, but let us for now observe that Gramsci himself lends some support to such scepticism, for he forcefully draws our attention to the necessity of studying events, ideas, texts and behaviour within their historical context. As a consequence of this, he saw placing one’s own life within a political and intellectual context as one of the most pressing philosophical activities. ‘The starting-point of critical elaboration’, he writes, ‘is . . . “knowing thyself ” as a product of the historical process to date which has deposited in you an infinity of traces’ (1971: 324).
