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.
Amid the never-ending crisis of the welfare state and the waning of the principle of solidarity, Sacha Lévy-Bruhl proposes a new interpretation. Starting from the idea of collective responsibility, he pursues an important goal: rethinking social protection in the twenty-first century.
What are the emancipatory prospects for women excluded from salaried work? By analyzing working-class Maghrebin women’s attitudes towards work, family, and heterosexuality, Fatma Çingi Kocadost shows the limits of individual emancipation through work.
Black women—whether from the Caribbean, Africa, or of African descent—have conceptualized and embodied French citizenship. Their often hidden trajectories and struggles illustrate an alternative history of the nation, shaped by colonialism, when seen through the lenses of race, class, and gender.
About: Alexandra Féret, Abdiquer la souveraineté. Politique et théologie chez Simone Weil, Vrin
About: Vanina Mozziconacci, Apprendre à philosopher en féministe, La Dispute
About: Étienne Anheim et Paul Pasquali, Bourdieu et Panofsky. Essai d’archéologie intellectuelle, Les Éditions de Minuit
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.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer. In the meantime, here is a selection of essays, reviews and interviews published over the past year, exploring the relationship between music and politics.
In order to better grasp protests and social movements in China, whose number has impressively swollen in recent years, Books&Ideas presents a dossier on the evolution of social mobilization and on the representation of social instability in this country.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be back at the end of August. In the meantime, here is a selection of interviews, reviews and essays on popular music published over the past year.
Miguel Abensour profoundly renewed thinking about democracy. His political philosophy paid close attention to the desire for emancipation and was based on an original conception of utopia breaking with the mythology of the ‘ideal city’ or of a ‘good society’.
Richard Hoggart (1918-2014), a poor child who went onto become a university professor, was the epitome of a successful scholarship student. The trajectory of this “exemplary counter-example” sheds light on the mechanisms of social reproduction when they prove inoperative and the distance that can be traveled from one’s native milieu.
From the margins to which he was confined, Georges Devereux (1908-1985) formulated some of the most original scientific work of his century. In the wake of Freud, whose legacy he firmly defended, Devereux initiated the transcultural practice of psychiatry. François Laplantine, one of his former disciples, reconsiders the legacy of ethnopsychoanalysis’ founder.
Avant de déterminer le « juste prix » d’un risque, une assurance doit déterminer le collectif au sein duquel les pertes seront partagées. Ce texte revient sur l’histoire de cette construction, des sociétés de secours mutuels aux techniques contemporaines de classification.
L’Amazonie, un terrain vierge avant l’arrivée des colonisateurs ? L’archéologie montre qu’il n’en est rien et que les peuples autochtones l’ont aménagée depuis des millénaires.
En comparant Federer aux plus grands peintres de la Renaissance, F. Lacouture entreprend de montrer ce que ce champion a de plus que les autres : une valeur esthétique irréductible à la performance. Mais peut-on considérer un sportif comme un artiste ?
À propos de : Claire Pagès, Dormir. Essai de philosophie sociale, Vrin
À propos de : Jérôme Baschet, Laurent Jeanpierre, Mondes postcapitalistes, La Découverte
A propos de : Clément Thibaud, 1815 : Fin de l’âge des révolutions ?, Puf
