Includes bibliographical references and index.

Columbia University Press's multivolume _Prison Notebooks_ is the only complete critical edition of Antonio Gramsci's seminal writings in English. Based on the authoritative Italian edition of Gramsci's work, _Quaderni del Carcere_, this comprehensive translation presents the intellectual as he ought to be read and understood, with critical notes that clarify Gramsci's history, culture, and sources; an index of names; and a contextualization of the thinker's ideas against his earlier writings and letters. This set includes notebooks 1 through 8 with all (...) attendant notes and materials and is an indispensible resource for scholars in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

An analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. The author's exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are linked within the context of such movements.

-- v. 3. From modernity to modernism (towards a metaphilosophy of daily life).

We aim to show how collective emotions can be incorporated into the study of episodes of political contention. In a critical vein, we systematically explore the weaknesses in extant models of collective action, showing what has been lost through a neglect or faulty conceptualization of collective emotional configurations. We structure this discussion in terms of a review of several “pernicious postulates” in the literature, assumptions that have been held, we argue, by classical social-movement theorists and by social-structural and cultural critics (...) alike. In a reconstructive vein, however, we also lay out the foundations of a more satisfactory theoretical framework. We take each succeeding critique of a pernicious postulate as the occasion for more positive theory-building. Drawing upon the work of the classical American pragmatists–especially Peirce, Dewey, and Mead–as well as aspects of Bourdieu's sociology, we construct, step by step, the foundations of a more adequate theorization of social movements and collective action. Accordingly, the negative and positive threads of our discussion are woven closely together: the dismantling of pernicious postulates and the development of a more useful analytical strategy. (shrink)

he article focuses on the contemporary social movements and new identities as well as the new theoretical paradigms to explain these developments. It is reported that the social movements like feminist, ecological, and local-autonomy movements started in the Europe in the 1970's. The participants in these movements, it is said, did not view themselves in terms of a socioeconomic class. Class background does not determine the collective identities of the actors of these socio-political movements. Different social philosophers and thinkers like (...) Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim and their ideas are also discussed. (shrink)

Conflict and cooperation between generations of radical feminists.

A full-length analysis of social movements from a cultural perspective. This work considers the different approaches to culture, how movements are affected by their cultural environment and internal cultures within the movements themselves.

The women's movement in India has a long and rich history in which millions of ordinary women live, work, and struggle to survive in order to remake their family, home, and social lives. Whether fighting for safe contraception, literacy, water, and electricity or resisting sexual harassment, a vibrant and active women's movement is thriving in many parts of India today. Fields of Protest explores the political and cultural circumstances under which groups of women organize. Starting with Bombay and Calcutta, Raka (...) Ray discusses the creation of "political fields" -- structured, unequal, and socially constructed political environments within which organizations exist, flourish, or fail. In other words, women's organizations are not autonomous or free agents; rather, they inherit a "field" and its accompanying social relations, and when they act, they act in response to it and within it. Drawing on the literature of both social movements and feminism, Ray analyzes the striking differences between the movements in these two cities. Using an innovative and comparative perspective, Ray offers a unique look at Indian activist women and adds a new dimension to the study of women's movements on a global level. (shrink)

Annotation Mardin (public administration, Bogazigi University, Istanbul) uses the example of the fundamentalist Islamic followers of Nursi (1876-1960) to show the interaction between religion and society. He follows parallel development in such fields as the world communications revolution, political and social reform, intellectual development and religious history. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.