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.
The Paris Agreement on Climate Change is three years old this week but is already under attack. In support of further necessary action to address the changing climate, Public Books & La Vie des Idées offer a collaborative series of articles examining the intersection of climate change and capitalism.
Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection questions the social construction of racial identities, and the history of domination.
The June protests which shook Brazil in 2013 stunned the world. This dossier, published by Books&Ideas, discusses the main issues at the core of these protests, analyzing them in the light of previous mobilizations and explaining why they are essential to the understanding of contemporary Brazil.
In an innovative study that returns Albert Camus’ early works to their rightful place in the canon, Laurent Bove suggests we should view Camus as a philosopher of immanence and of acquiescence to the joy of the world. This reading is enlightening as far as Camus’ thoughts on history are concerned, but tends to gloss over the ruptures that run though his work, which is driven with multiple tensions.
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.
By asserting that structuralism is a fruitful approach to kinship relations or the difference between the sexes, Françoise Héritier radically renewed anthropological methodology. Her life’s work has also shown us that scientific commitment goes hand-in-hand with societal involvement.
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
