Pierre Bourdieu

Has the revolution that led from the economy of the gift, characteristic of most precapitalist societies, to the economy of modern societies been accomplished in all spheres of life, as tacitly assumed by those who claim to apply the model of the profit-optimizing agent to every practice – to art, to education and even to marriage, seen as an exchange...

This is the fifth and final volume based on the lectures given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collège de France in the early 1980s under the title General Sociology. In these lectures, Bourdieu sets out to define and defend sociology as an intellectual discipline, and in doing so he introduces and clarifies all the key concepts which have come to...

A key feature of those who work for the state, in the legal system and in public services is that they claim to be putting their own personal interests aside and working in a disinterested fashion, for the public good. But is disinterested behaviour possible? Can law be treated as a set of universal rules that are independent of particular...

Between 1954 and 1960, in the midst of the Algerian War, more than two million Algerian peasants – a quarter of the population – were forcibly resettled. They were removed from their homes and villages and relocated in camps controlled by the French military in what was one of the largest and most brutal displacements of a rural population in...

This is the fourth of five volumes based on the lectures given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collège de France in the early 1980s under the title General Sociology. In these lectures, Bourdieu sets out to define and defend sociology as an intellectual discipline, and in doing so he introduces and clarifies all the key concepts which have come to...

This slim volume contains four little-known texts by Pierre Bourdieu on the question of reflexivity, which was a key theme in his work. For Bourdieu, reflexivity was not an exercise in introspection but rather a way of applying the tools of sociology to itself. The aim is to make explicit and control the effects of the presuppositions, standpoints, and dispositions...

In the late 1950s, like tens of thousands of young men of his generation, Pierre Bourdieu, having recently passed the agrégation in philosophy, found himself immersed in the Algerian war. Motivated by an impulse that, as he himself says, ‘was civic rather than political’, nothing seemed more important to him than to understand the Algerian situation and provide the elements...

This is the third of five volumes based on the lectures given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collége de France in the early 1980s under the title General Sociology. In these lectures, Bourdieu sets out to define and defend sociology as an intellectual discipline; in doing so, he introduces and clarifies all the key concepts for which he has become...

While Bourdieu’s work on cultural production, the reproduction of inequality and the rise of the modern state is well known, his writings on the phenomena of internationalization and imperialism have received much less attention. Bourdieu’s analyses of the international circulation of ideas and the imperialisms of the universal – where two political powers, such as the United States and France,...

What is a symbolic revolution? What happens when a symbolic revolution occurs, how can it succeed and prevail, and why is it so difficult to understand? Using the exemplary case of Édouard Manet, Pierre Bourdieu began to ponder these questions as early as the 1980s, before making it the focus of his lectures in his last years at the Collége...

In 1988, the renowned sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and the leading historian Roger Chartier met for a series of lively discussions that were broadcast on French public radio. Published here for the first time, these conversations are an accessible and engaging introduction to the work of these two great thinkers, who discuss their work and explore the similarities and differences between...

This volume brings together Bourdieu's highly original writings on language and on the relations between language, power and politics. Bourdieu develops a forceful critique of traditional approaches to language, including the linguistic theories of Saussure and Chomsky and the theory of speech acts elaborated by Austin and others. He argues that language should be viewed not only as a means...

The Field of Cultural Production brings together Bourdieu's most important writings on art, literature and aesthetics. Bourdieu develops a highly original approach to the study of literary and artistic works, addressing many of the key issues that have preoccupied literary, art and cultural criticism in the late twentieth century: aesthetic value and judgement, the social contexts of cultural practice, the...

Masculine Domination is so deeply ingrained in our unconscious that we hardly perceive all of its dimensions. It is so much in line with our expectations that we struggle to call it fully into question. Pierre Bourdieu's ethnographic analysis of gender divisions in Kabyle society, as a living reservoir of the Mediterranean cultural tradition, provides a potent instrument for disclosing...

No judgement of taste is innocent — we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction brilliantly illuminates the social pretensions of the middle classes in the modern world, focusing on the tastes and preferences of the French bourgeoisie. First published in 1979, the book is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind. In...

What is the nature of the modern state? How did it come into being and what are the characteristics of this distinctive field of power that has come to play such a central role in the shaping of all spheres of social, political and economic life? In this major work, the great sociologist Pierre Bourdieu addresses these fundamental questions. Modifying...

During the last two decades, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has become a dominant force in cultural activity ranging from taste in music and art to choices in food and lifestyles. The Field of Cultural Production brings together Bourdieu's major essays on art and literature and provides the first introduction to Bourdieu's writings and theory of a cultural field that situates artistic...

This is the second of five volumes based on the lectures given by Pierre Bourdieu at the Collège de France in the early 1980s under the title General Sociology. In these lectures, Bourdieu sets out to define and defend sociology as an intellectual discipline, and in doing so he introduces and clarifies all the key concepts which have come to...