Book Review: Esteve Morera, Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy
| Author | Egni Malo |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929916676928 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsPolitical Theory |
93
Rarely has a publisher selected such a relevant
will make every page relevant, even for scholars
cover for a scholarly book. On its front cover,
already familiar with gender and politics.
Emanuela Lombardo and Petra Meier’s Symbolic
Graduate students of women studies will particu-
Representation of Gender features Spain’s
larly benefit from reading this book because it
Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, inspecting
reconfirms the importance of the symbolic in the
‘her’ troops in 2008. Not only was she the first
social sciences.
elected woman to do so in such a position, but
also her maternity blouse subtly indicated she
Yves Laberge
was obviously pregnant, which was significant
(Centre de recherche en éducation et forma-
in terms of gendered political symbols: this
tion relatives à l’environnement et à
woman was obviously ‘invading space that tends
l’écocitoyenneté, Québec)6
to be associated with men’ (p. 2).
© The Author(s) 2016
The 10 chapters study such symbols, adopting
Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1478929916672962
Hanna Pitkin’s theory of the symbolic dimension
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
of representation, understood here as ‘the repre-
sentation of a group, nation or state through an
object to which a certain representative meaning
Gramsci, Materialism, and Philosophy by
is attributed’ (p. 2). Hence, the most familiar sym-
Esteve Morera. Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.
bol is probably ‘Marianne’, a feminine figure that
146pp., £85.00 (h/b), ISBN 9781138013841
encompasses France as a whole nation. Evidently,
symbolic representations are salient for the con-
Marxism as a critical theory has largely been
struction of identity for every nation (pp. 31 and
founded on the type of historical materialism
55). Paraphrasing Harold Lasswell’s famous
that very much ascended from the works of a
model of communication ‘Who says What to
generation of writers in the early...
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