Green, Marcus E.
Rethinking the subaltern and the question of censorship in Gramsci's Prison Notebooks.
This article provides a new reading of Gramsci's concept of subaltern social groups. Through a philological analysis of the "Prison Notebooks", the article puts into question the widespread (mis)interpretation in subaltern studies and postcolonial literature that Gramsci developed the phrase subaltern social groups' as code for the word proletariat' in his "Prison Notebooks" in order to deceive prison censors. The article first demonstrates how the diffusion of the subaltern censorship thesis' has limited current interpretations of Gramsci's concept of the subaltern to strictly class terms. Then, through an exegesis of Notebook 25, the article demonstrates that there is no textual evidence to support the censorship thesis. Finally, through an examination of several notes in Notebook 25, the article provides an extrapolation of Gramsci's concept of subalternity. This reveals that Gramsci's concept of the subaltern is not limited to class relations and that subalternity in the Gramscian sense encompasses an intersectionality of race, class, gender, and religion. In contrast to current literature, this article shows that Gramsci's concept of the subaltern is more complex than often recognized and that his analysis of subalternity relates to the function of intellectuals, constructions of identity and otherness, historiography, representation, the national popular, coloniality, and political organization.
| Lingua | eng |
| Nomi |
[author] Green, Marcus E. |
| Soggetti |
Quaderno 25
Subaltern Studies
Notebook 25
Subaltern Studies |
