Gramscian Philology and Subaltern Social Groups

Antonio Gramsci’s prison notebooks, in their integral critical edition, are a fragmentary, intricate, and unfinished record of his philological method of investigation. They weave together multiple fragments and threads of inquiry that intersect and overlap, making it difficult to examine one concept or motif without examining others. As Joseph A. Buttigieg argued in several of his essays, Gramsci’s enduring relevance lies not in isolated ideas or concepts but in his distinctive method of inquiry, which one can grasp only by engaging with a complete edition of the notebooks. Yet anthologies of notebooks are useful entry points into Gramsci’s writings, as average readers will unlikely become interested in his work solely through a complete critical edition. The anthology Subaltern Social Groups provides a translation of Notebook 25, “On the Margins of History: History of Subaltern Groups,” and a thematic selection of notes pertaining to the topic. As the commentators in this symposium demonstrate, Notebook 25 provides several entry points into the major themes of the prison notebooks.