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.
What does it mean to “decolonize knowledge”? What is the difference between “anticolonial,” “postcolonial,” and “decolonial”? To address the semantic confusion surrounding the term “decolonial,” Lissell Quiroz and Philippe Colin propose a genealogy of this current of thought, which emerged in Latin America in the 1990s.
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.
How can we move beyond abstract architecture, where buildings are constructed without their audiences? Peter Ferretto’s method is based on observation, engagement, and the osmosis between teaching, practice, research, and social impact.
Sarah Gensburger dismisses the idea of the French state being overwhelmed by the fragmentation and proliferation of memory-related demands. Rather, the state is the primary creator of society’s memorial frameworks, even using them as a powerful means of reasserting its own legitimacy.
Faced with the risk of losing man to the self, Pierre Guenancia says that we should abandon the self to rediscover man.
About: Cédric Durand, Razmig Keucheyan, Comment bifurquer. Les principes de la planification écologique, La Découverte
About: Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús, Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease, Duke University
About: Gilles Havard, Les Natchez. Une histoire coloniale de la violence, Tallandier / Flammarion
Ukraine’s water networks have been mobilized since the start of the war in 2014. Infrastructure workers are some of the last to leave settlements attacked by the Russian army. Water systems and people are resisting but are reaching the limits of their capacity to adapt to violence and disruptions.
Michel Crozier’s work was shaped by the conviction that organizational phenomena create society. He helped pioneer the tools for analyzing groups established to carry out a common project according to a specific system of action and rules of the game.
The EU aims for net climate neutrality by 2050, utilizing the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) as its main tool. But the climate crisis demands more than market mechanisms. It requires comprehensive planning and legal frameworks that prioritize public over private interests.
How to renew the currently dwindling support for democratic governance? To the minds of theorists and historians, whether advocating going back to classical political traditions like Republicanism or drawing lots, or experimenting new approaches, increased political participation may be the best path to follow.
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.
Over the past few months, Books and Ideas has been running a series of interviews with leading contemporary scholars, who took the time to discuss their particular topics of research with us. For the Christmas season, we have put together a selection of seven discussions with intellectuals across the humanities and sciences: sociology, history, comparative literature, neuro-biology, anthropology and political science.
Fred Block & Margaret Somers, two key members of an international network of scholars appealing to Karl Polanyi’s masterpiece of 1944, forcefully argue that it constitutes a critical resource for understanding not only the nature and origins of the market economy but also its recurrent crises, including the current one.
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?
Face à des directions artistiques plus frileuses, face à la concurrence de la photo et de l’IA, quelle liberté y a-t-il encore pour le dessin de presse aujourd’hui ? Pour Sergio Aquindo qui travaille depuis 25 ans pour la presse, il est encore possible d’y jouer finement de la polysémie du dessin, notamment dans les chroniques judiciaires.
Une longue tradition historiographique locale a longtemps fait prévaloir l’idée que la modération aurait caractérisé les Orléanais pendant la Révolution. C’était faire fi de l’existence de courants fortement politisés, au-delà même de la seule période révolutionnaire.
Dans un capitalisme chinois en quête d’une éthique, la figure ancienne du marchand confucéen est réinventé par des entrepreneurs.
À propos de : Jérôme Baschet, Quand commence le capitalisme ? De la société féodale au monde de l’économie, Crise et critique
À propos de : Simon Icard, Le jansénisme, une théologie, Éditions du Cerf
À propos de : Nadège Vezinat, Le service public empêché, Puf
