Traduction: Pierre Bourdieu, Imperialisms: The International Circulation of Ideas and the Struggle for the Universal

Pierre Bourdieu

Imperialisms

The International Circulation of Ideas 

and the Struggle for the Universal

Polity Press

2025

 Présentation de l'éditeur

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, clash on matters of cultural legitimacy – generated multiple research programmes on topics ranging from translation and scientific exchange to global economic policy.  The constitution of globalized domains where national problems like unemployment, ethnicity and poverty are subjected to international import-export processes serves to naturalize the dominant vision of dominant countries and impose it on national political contexts. 

Freedom, democracy and human rights have been constituted as universal values and some countries claim to embody these values more than others.  However, historical analysis shows that things are not so simple and that the actual content given to these values does not necessarily have the universality they claim.  For example, the claim to universality of past colonial or imperial policies arouses suspicion in the eyes of some, to the point of calling into question the very idea of universality.  But it is possible to move beyond the alternative between, on the one hand, a naïve belief in universality and, on the other, a disenchanted relativism that sees the universal as nothing more than a disingenuous way to legitimize particular interests.  Bourdieu argues that the theory of fields enables us to move beyond this alternative by showing that the struggle for the universal can produce its own forms of universality that transcend particular interests. 

This volume of Bourdieu’s writings on internationalization, imperialism and the struggle for the universal will be of interest to students and scholars in sociology, anthropology, politics and the social sciences and humanities generally.

Translated by Peter Collier

Table of Contents

Editors’ Note
Publisher’s Note


Introduction


1 Universalism and Domination
1.1 Two Imperialisms of the Universal
1.2 The Cunning of Imperialist Reason (with Loïc Wacquant)


2 Texts without contexts
2.1 The Social Conditions of the International Circulation of Ideas
2.2 Programme For a Sociology of the International Circulation of Cultural Works
2.3 Does Belgian Literature Exist?


3 A Relational Comparatism
3.1 Passport to Duke
3.2 Social Structures and Structures of Perception of the Social World
- Final Discussion
- Annex
3.3 The Specifics of National Histories: Towards a Comparative History of the Relevant Differences Between Nations
3.4 The Scholarly Unconscious


4 Sketch of Analyses of International Fields
4.1 The Olympics – An Agenda for Analysis
4.2 The Global Legal Field
4.3 The Internationalisation of the Economic Field


Guide
To a Flourishing Research Programme


Notes
Index

Traduction: Pierre Bourdieu, Return to Reflexivity

 

Pierre Bourdieu

Return to Reflexivity 

Polity Press

2024

 

Présentation de l'éditeur

Ouvrage traduit par Peter Collier

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 that the researcher brings to the conduct of social science research.  Bourdieu advocates an attitude of epistemological vigilance that helps to uncover the invisible effects of the social determinants that weigh on the researcher, effects that are difficult to perceive by the mere desire to be lucid.  Questioning the social position and presuppositions of the researcher at every opportunity loosens the hold of scholastic and other biases on the outcome of research.

By clarifying and illustrating the principles of reflexivity, the four texts in this volume lay the groundwork for the kind of reflexive social science that Bourdieu practised and advocated throughout his career.

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was one of the most influential sociologists and anthropologists of the late twentieth century. He was Professor of Sociology at the Collège de France and Director of Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.  His many works include Outline of a Theory of Practice, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, The Rules of Art, The Logic of Practice and Pascalian Meditations.

Traduction: Pierre Bourdieu, The Interest in Disinterestedness: Lectures at the College de France 1987-1989

 

 

Pierre Bourdieu

The Interest in Disinterestedness

Lectures at the College de France 

1987-1989

Polity Press

2024

 

Présentation de l'éditeur

Ouvrage traduit par Peter Collier

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 interests, or is this mere ideology? Is the state bureaucracy a universal class, as Hegel thought, or a structure that serves the interests of the dominant class, as Marx claimed?

In his lecture courses at the Collège de France in 1987–88 and 1988–89, Pierre Bourdieu addressed these questions by examining the formation of the legal and bureaucratic fields characteristic of the modern state, uncovering the historical and social conditions that enable a social group to form and find its own interests in the very fact of serving interests that go beyond it. For a disinterested universe to emerge, it needs both the invention of a public service, or a spirit of service to the public cause, and the creation of a social universe in which individuals can pursue a career devoted to public service and be rewarded for it. In other words, it requires a process of specialization whereby autonomous, specific fields become established in the social cosmos within which a special kind of game that follows the rules of disinterest can be played out.

By reconstructing the conditions under which an interest in disinterestedness emerged, Bourdieu sheds new light on the formation of the modern state and legal system and provides a fresh perspective on the many professions in modern societies that are oriented towards the service of the common good. 

 

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was one of the most influential sociologists and anthropologists of the late twentieth century. He was Professor of Sociology at the Collège de France and Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales.  His many works include Outline of a Theory of Practice, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, The Rules of Art, The Logic of Practice and Pascalian Meditations.

Pierre Bourdieu, Forms of Capital. General Sociology, Volume 3: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1983 - 84

 

Pierre Bourdieu

Forms of Capital

General Sociology, Volume 3

Lectures at the Collège de France 

1983 - 84 

Polity

2021

 

Présentation de l'éditeur

Translated by Peter Collier

This is the third 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; in doing so he introduces and clarifies all the key concepts for which he has become so well known, concepts that continue to shape the way that sociology is practised today.

In this volume, Bourdieu focuses on one of these key concepts, capital, which forms part of the trilogy of concepts – habitus, capital, field – that define the core of his theoretical approach. A field, as a social space of relatively durable relations between agents and institutions, is also a site of specific investments, which presupposes the possession of specific forms of capital and secures both material and symbolic profits. While there are many different forms of capital, two are fundamental and effective in all social fields: economic capital and cultural capital. These and other forms of capital exist only in relation to the fields in which they are deployed: the distribution of the forms and quantities of capital constitutes the structure of the field within which agents act and they confer power over the field, over the mechanisms that define the functioning of the field and over the profits engendered in the field – over, for example, the transmission of cultural capital in the educational system.

An ideal introduction to one of Bourdieu’s most important concepts, this volume will be of great interest to the many students and scholars who study and use Bourdieu’s work across the social sciences and humanities, and to general readers who want to know more about the work of one of the most important sociologists and social thinkers of the twentieth century.

 

Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles, General Sociology, Volume 1, Lectures at the Collège de France, 1981-82; Habitus and Field, General Sociology, Volume 2, Lectures at the Collège de France, 1982-83

 

Pierre Bourdieu 

Classification Struggles

General Sociology, Volume 1

Lectures at the Collège de France

1981-82

Polity

 2019

Présentation de l'éditeur

Translated by Peter Collier

This is the first of five volumes that will be based on 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, giving it his own distinctive twist. In doing so he introduces and clarifies all the key concepts for which he has become so well-known, such as field, capital and habitus, concepts that continue to shape the way that sociology is practiced today.
In this first volume, Bourdieu focuses on the fundamental social processes of naming and classifying the world, the ways that social actors use words to construct social objects and the struggles that arise from this. The sociologist encounters a world that is already named, already classified, where objects and social realities are marked by signs that have already been assigned to them. In order to avoid the naiveté and confusion that stem from taking for granted a world that has been socially constituted, sociologists must examine the part played by words in the construction of social things – or, to put it differently, the contribution that classification struggles, a dimension of all class struggles, play in the constitution of classes, including classes of age, sex, race and social class.

An ideal introduction to some of Bourdieu’s most important concepts and ideas, this volume will be of great interest to the many students and scholars who study and use Bourdieu’s work across the social sciences and humanities, and to general readers who want to know more about the work of one of the most important sociologists and social thinkers of the 20th century.

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was one of the most influential sociologists and anthropologists of the late twentieth century. He was Professor of Sociology at the Collège de France and Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. His many works include Outline of a Theory of Practice, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, The Rules of Art, The Logic of Practice and Pascalian Meditations.

Pierre Bourdieu

Habitus and Field

General Sociology, Volume 2

Lectures at the Collège de France

1982-83

Polity

2019

Présentation de l'éditeur
Translated by Peter Collier

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 define his distinctive intellectual approach. 

In this volume, Bourdieu focuses on two of his most important and influential concepts: habitus and field.  For the social scientist, the object of study is neither the individual nor the group but the relation between these two manifestations of the social in bodies and in things: that is, the obscure, dual relation between the habitus – as a system of schemas of perception, appreciation and action – and the field as a system of objective relations and a space of possible actions and struggles aimed at preserving or transforming the field. The relation between the habitus and the field is a two-way process: it is a relation of conditioning, where the field structures the habitus, and it is also a relation of knowledge, with the habitus helping to constitute the field as a world that is endowed with meaning and value.  The specificity of social science lies in the fact that it takes as its object of knowledge a reality that encompasses agents who take this same reality as the object of their own knowledge.

An ideal introduction to some of Bourdieu’s most important concepts and ideas, this volume will be of great interest to the many students and scholars who study and use Bourdieu’s work across the social sciences and humanities, and to general readers who want to know more about the work of one of the most important sociologists and social thinkers of the 20th century.

Traduction: Pierre Bourdieu, Manet. A Symbolic Revolution

Pierre Bourdieu

Manet
A Symbolic Revolution

Polity

2017

Présentation de l'éditeur

Translated by Peter Collier and Margaret Rigaud-Drayton

What is a ‘symbolic revolution’? What happens when a symbolic revolutions 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 Collège de France. This volume of Bourdieu’s previously unpublished lectures provides his most sustained contribution to the sociology of art and the analysis of cultural fields. It is also a major contribution to our understanding of impressionism and the works of Manet. 
Bourdieu treats the paintings of Manet as so many challenges to the conservative academicism of the pompier painters, the populism of the Realists, the commercial eclecticism of genre painting, and even the ‘Impressionists’, showing that such a revolution is inseparable from the conditions that allow fields of cultural production to emerge. At a time when the Academy was in crisis and when the increase in the number of painters challenged the role of the state in defining artistic value, the break that Manet inaugurated revolutionised the aesthetic order. The new vision of the world that emerged from this upheaval still shapes our categories of perception and judgement today – the very categories that we use every day to understand the representations of the world and the world itself.

This major work by one of the greatest sociologists of the last 50 years will be welcomed by students and scholars in sociology, art history and the social sciences and humanities generally. It will also appeal to a wide readership interested in art, in impressionism and in the works of Manet.

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was one of the most influential sociologists and anthropologists of the late twentieth century. He was Professor of Sociology at the Collège de France and Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Science Sociales. His many works include Outline of a Theory of Practice, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, The Rules of Art, The Logic of Practice and Pascalian Meditations.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Editors’ Note
Translators’ Note
Lectures at the Collège de France 1998-1999: The Manet Effect
Lecture of 6 January 1999
Lecture objectives: the symbolic revolution that Manet started. Pompier painting. Parenthesis: a social problem and a sociological problem. State art and avant-garde academicism. The mock-revolution. Parenthesis on scientific populism. An impossible research programme: the space of criticism. From the familiar to the scandalous. A painting full of incongruity. The clash between the noble and the vulgar. The affinity between different hierarchies. ‘Realism/formalism’, a false dichotomy.
Lecture of 13 January 1999
Question on the revolution in art. The game of the educated guess (‘That makes me think of …’). Constructing the field of criticism. The effects of the work of art. The ‘intersubjective unconscious’. The intentionalist theory. Aesthetic transgression and solecisms. The rhetoric of euphemism and the effect of a title. The effects of composition. A symbolic bomb. The rationale of a painting. Using a painting within a painting to question painting. Intention and disposition.
Lecture of 20 January 1999
Reply to a question on dialectics. Transgressions of the ethical order. Manet and Monet. The academic eye. Dispositional theory. The philosophy of intention. Intention and disposition. When a habitus come into contact with a space of possibilities. The example of writers. Critique of the notion of sources. The hypothesis of coherence.
Lecture of 27 January 1999
Reflexive return to the previous lecture. Pre-constructed objects and technical impeccability. Epistemological breaks and social breaks. The theory of dispositions and scholastic bias. The philosophy of intention and the philosophy of disposition. Critique of genetic criticism. Critique of the iconographic tradition. The hermeneutic posture. Copies, parodies, and pastiches. A very strange exercise. Knowledge through the body.
Lecture of 3 February 1999
Replies to two misunderstandings. Of the right use of sources. Listening to a lecture. Internalists and Externalists. Youthful works and school exercises. The Intelligence of the Body. The structural conditions of creation. A total social fact. An institutional crisis. A formalist theory. Finishing with the ‘finish’ of the pompier painters.
Lecture of 10 February 1999
Return to a hasty reaction. Limits of the formalist approach. The illusio as metabelief. The trap of dichotomous logics. Questioning the academic system and the historicisation of the work of art. Social history of academic art. Studios as elite schools. Corps and field. The field of publishing.
Lecture of 17 February 1999
An academic art. Pompier art, aristocrats and nouveaux riches. The academic aesthetic. An integrated academic institution. Studios and rites of initiation. Portrait of a professor of the Beaux-Arts. On ragging. Consecration and the production of belief. A gradus ad parnassum. The Academy and academic painting. Technical and historical virtuosity. An aesthetic of readability. A ‘dehistoricised’ history. An aesthetic of the finished.
Lecture of 24 February 1999
Manet’s critics. Parenthesis on the line separating the private from the public. Life style and style of the works. The abolition of meaning. The heretics and the orthodox. Nomination. The struggle for monopoly. Exhibition and consecration. The transformation of the school system. The defence of the corps. A crisis of belief. Durkheim’s morphological model and its limits.
Lecture of 4 March 1999
External factors and the logic of fields: the surplus production of diplomas. The reproduction of differences. Disciplines and ‘refuge’ positions. The weakening of the state monopoly. The contribution of the public to the revolution. The sclerosis of the Salon and the generalised crisis of belief. A comparison of the artistic milieus of Paris and London. Manet and the Pre-Raphaelites. Manet seen by Mallarmé.
Lectures at the Collège de France 1999-2000: Foundations of a Dispositionalist Aesthetic
Lecture of 12 January 2000
Doubts and reflexivity. Birth of the artistic field. A commentary of Mallarmé’s text on Manet. A critique of criticism. The Zola-Manet-Mallarmé paradigm. The inconsistencies of Bar at the Folies-Bergère. Mallarmé on Manet. The structural homology between the artistic and religious fields. Belief and the return to the sources.
Lecture of 19 January 2000
Zola and Mallarmé. Formalism, materialism and symbolism. ‘Throwing yourself into the water’ as a philosophy of action. A practical aesthetic.
Lecture of 26 January 2000
A critical look at the previous lecture: the need for a double historicisation. A parenthesis on art criticism. Back to Mallarmé’s article. Framing to make cutouts out of the world. A new economy of production. When two histories meet.
Lecture of 2 February 2000
Summary of the previous lecture. Accounting for artistic forms: the infrastructure/superstructure model. Models of historical processes. The approach I take in this lecture: the habitus-field model. Manet and the challenge to analysis. Analytical method. Beyond the continuous/discontinuous alternative.
Breaks v continuity. The Salon des refusés of 1863. For a rational form of eclecticism. The Impressionist break with continuity (1): Impressionism foreshadowed. The Impressionist break with continuity (2): parody. The paradox of symbolic revolutionaries. Accounting for charisma. Technical factors. Morphological changes. Factors linked with demand. A multifactorial model. Specificity of the economy of symbolical goods.
Lecture of 16 February 2000
The artistic field. Social transformations and formal transformations. A parenthesis on being ‘economical’ with research. The ‘painter of modern life’. The fallacy of the short-circuit. The gaze in Manet’s work. The field as intermediary social space. Artist societies. A parenthesis on pseudo-concepts. Aesthetico-political attitudes and positions in the field of art. The field of criticism between the literary and the artistic fields. A revolution in the field of art.
Lecture of 23 February 2000
The production of belief. The usefulness of the notion of field. The field of criticism: its two dimensions. Portraits of critics. How the field of criticism operates. The principle of competence. When the notion of field guides the analysis. Manet, the subject and object of the artistic field.
Lecture of 1 March 2000
Mechanistic explanations and structural causality. Bodily hexis. Manet’s cleft habitus. Manet’s capital. The places where Manet accumulated social capital: 1) The Collège Rollin. 2) The salon of Commandant Lejosne. 3) The salon held by Manet’s wife. 4) The studio of Thomas Couture. 5) The Louvre Museum. 6) The cafés and their fashionable bohemian crowd. 7) Painters’ studios.
Lecture of 8 March 2000
A reminder on my approach. Art as a ‘pure practice without theory’. The author’s point of view and relationship to the public. An aesthetic of effects. Manet understood as a concrete individual. Form and content. The Manet effect. Foils and fulcrums. Analyses of Manet’s works.
Opus Infinitum: Genesis and Structure of a Work Without End (by Christophe Charle)
Manet the Heresiarch. Genesis of the Artistic and Critical Fields. (Unfinished Manuscript by Pierre and Mari-Christine Bourdieu)
Introduction
Chapter 1: Pompier Art as an Academic Universal
Chapter 2: The Crisis in the Academic Institution
Chapter 3: Break and Continuity
Chapter 4: The Field of Criticism and the Artistic Field
Chapter 5: The Heresiarch and Co.
Chapter 6: Manet's Aesthetics
Appendix
Self-Portrait as a Free Artist: or ‘I Don't Know Why I Am Telling You That’ (by Pascale Casanova)
Summaries of the Lectures Published in L'Annuaire du Collège De France
Notes