Books & Ideas is the English-language mirror website of La Vie des Idées, a free online journal which has gained a large readership and established itself in France as a major place for intellectual debate since 2007.
How does justice vanquish force? Simone Weil’s thought unifies politics and religion while proposing a radical conception of power, understood not as domination but as retreat, in a world in which violence gives way to obedience.
Can one philosophize as a feminist when the history of philosophy is so gendered? Yes—but this requires paying close attention to the positions that traverse and often constitute it.
Étienne Anheim and Paul Pasquali examine a key moment in interdisciplinary dialogue: Pierre Bourdieu’s translation and editing of the art historian Erwin Panofsky.
About: Bernard Manin, Montesquieu, Hermann
About: Pierre Charbonnier, Vers l’écologie de guerre, La Découverte
About: Geneviève Verdo, Des peuples en mal d’union. Aux origines de l’Argentine, Flammarion
The female silhouette – understood as the body’s visible form and socially perceived appearance – has long been shaped by social norms. In the age of social media, these norms are intensifying, prompting, in response, the rise of so-called “body-positive” movements.
A rumour is circulating in some African countries: the French state is organising penis thefts to offset declining fertility. The rumour, spread by Russian propaganda, has become fake news.
The American sociologist Harrison White made a vital contribution to the development of social network analysis. Besides his work in this field, his theoretical synthesis and his understanding of social formations have influenced a variety of fields such as the sociology of art and economic sociology.
Food is now a conspicuous topic, from culinary blogs to magazines, diet books, TV shows and contests. Yet unbeknownst to many, it often holds an underground, clandestine place in some of social science’s major works. This dossier assesses the current importance of such scholarly endeavors, known as “food studies” in the United States.
As populism is rising on a global level, Books & Ideas offers a series on media politics in East Asian countries, to be published over the next two weeks. Though situations are extremely diverse, they can teach us a lot on the relationship between the state and journalists in authoritarian contexts. What role is left for the media to play in non-democracies?
A selection of five essays and reviews recently published in Books&Ideas discusses the legacy and renewal of social class studies in France, Great-Britain and India.
Rediscovering an activist thinker who was at the origins of eco-feminism, but remains unknown. Her work inspired an extremely heterogeneous movement, but has her ambition to concretely transform the social, economic and political organisation of society been pursued?
“Do we have the right to make bets on the future of mankind?” Forty-one years after being the first ecologist candidate in a presidential campaign and publishing his manifesto book, René Dumont’s intuitions and warnings have lost little of their relevance.
Ronald Dworkin’s innovative and politically ambitious work has become essential reading in political and legal theory. Taking issue with classical political liberalism, he argues that liberty and equality are not mutually exclusive, and are indeed inseparable. And against traditional interpretations of law, he argues that law must be understood by comparing it to a collective novel, a mixture of creativity and interpretation.
La canicule nous touche toutes et tous, mais pas de la même manière ni avec la même intensité. Cependant la prise en compte des inégalités environnementales reste encore très timide, quand elle n’est pas tout simplement écartée.
Renouvelant la façon d’aborder l’histoire de la Révolution française, l’étude de la période à partir des parutions littéraires et de leurs comptes rendus journalistiques permet de battre en brèche l’idée reçue d’une pauvreté de la création littéraire durant la décennie révolutionnaire.
D. Boullier cherche à comprendre ce que deviennent nos capacités de penser, de juger, de créer et d’agir à l’heure de l’expansion tous azimuts de l’IA générative. Bien que de nature anthropologique, cette révolution ne doit pas se faire contre l’humain.
À propos de : Hamit Bozarslan, Walpurgis. Les révolutions de droite, XIXe-XXe siècles, Passés/composés
À propos de : Vincent Azoulay, Ostracisme ! Du bon usage de l’arbitraire en démocratie, éditions de l’EHESS
À propos de : Steeves Demazeux, Misère de la psychiatrie, Puf
