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 effects have economic rationalization had on public services? Nadège Vezinat presents a nuanced picture of how institutional dynamics weaken the welfare state’s bureaucracy, agents, and the rights of beneficiaries.
Jeanne Tsai and Batja Mesquita show how emotions are shaped by cultural logics that orient our relationships and judgments. Their conversation raises a broader question: what does it mean to understand others in culturally plural societies?
According to Arnaud Orain, capitalism, with the exception of a few historical periods when free markets prevailed, has primarily been characterized by mercantilism, or “capitalism of finitude,” which pits against one another the ambitions of nation-states that seek to escape competition by imposing their hegemony through force.
During the Middle Ages, women didn’t just listen to music. They sang, composed, copied, and transmitted it. Behind the silence of the sources, there exits, from cloisters to courts, a form of musical life that remains largely unknown. A new book brings to life these flourishing musical practices.
About: Éric Dacheux et Daniel Goujon, Théorie délibérative des valeurs, Presses universitaires de Provence
About: Céline Marty, L’écologie libertaire d’André Gorz. Démocratiser le travail, libérer le temps, Presses universitaires de France
About: Sophie Cras et Charlotte Guichard, Vendre son art. De la renaissance à nos jours, Seuil
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 and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection focuses on China today, its uses of digital technologies to govern, and the political theories developed by its intellectuals.
How do images shape our worldview ? What do their study bring to our understanding of society ? Through interviews, essays and reviews this dossier shows how the close study of still or moving images has become central to the social sciences. From anthropology to history or literature, taking into account the overwhelming presence of visual representation yields unexpected and original information about human, social and political relationships.
A selection of four essays recently published on Books & Ideas offers new perspectives on the definition, historiography and potential applications of environmental theory.
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’.
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?
Although now considered a pseudo-science, phrenology was tremendously successful in its Victorian heyday. Tracing the intellectual and scientific journey of George Combe, the ’science’s most prominent promoter in Great Britain, this paper addresses the phrenologists’ little-known contribution to the ’social question’ debate of the day, and the ambiguities of their social gospel.
Que savons-nous vraiment du système solaire ? Titulaire de la chaire « Formation planétaire : de la Terre aux exoplanètes » au Collège de France, Alessandro Morbidelli retrace sa genèse chaotique, et dévoile la façon dont les découvertes récentes bousculent les certitudes.
Comment conserver son identité culturelle et la mémoire des persécutions lorsqu’on est membre du Parti communiste, un parti qui se veut universaliste ? En étant attentive aux sociabilités et aux émotions de ses cadres juifs, l’historienne Zoé Grumberg analyse leurs dilemmes et leurs contributions au communisme français.
La famille s’est-elle transformée au XVIIIe siècle ? Est-elle devenue un espace d’émancipation pour les individus désormais détenteurs de droits, ou est-elle restée au contraire un lieu de domination genrée ? Les philosophes des Lumières ont à ces questions des réponses nuancées.
À propos de : Gabrielle Angey, Yannick Fer et Juliette Galonnier (dir.), Saisir les religions en sociologue. Enjeux et méthodes, ENS éditions
À propos de : Arnaud Fossier, La Réputation au village. Enquête sur des procès d’Église (XIIIe siècle), Puf
À propos de : Bertrand Geay, Jérôme Camus, Pierre Clément et Pierig Humeau, dir., La Reproduction au 21e siècle. Actualité de la sociologie de Bourdieu et Passeron, Éditions du Croquant
