Gramsci in America, America in Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci, one of the major figures in twentieth-century culture, died in 1937 at the age of 46 after eight years of incarceration by Italy’s Fascist government. A disabled man whose physical and mental health were severely compromised by the prison regime, he nevertheless managed to write in prison hundreds of letters and filled 29 school exercise books with reflections on a wide range of subjects, from politics and history to philosophy, linguistics and literature, as well as four notebooks consisting of translations. Among the many themes, Gramsci took a particular interest in “Americanism” – American innovations in factory production and related forms of social organization – both in newspaper articles before his arrest in 1926 and in his prison notes on “Americanism and Fordism”, which he revised in 1934.

This conference, “America in Gramsci / Gramsci in America”, hosted by Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò at NYU and organized by David Forgacs (NYU) and Kate Crehan (City University of New York), will focus both on Gramsci’s writings about the U.S. and on the impact of his writings on the United States. The two-day international conference will take place on October 24 – 25, 2025, and over twenty Gramsci scholars from around the world will be present.

Concurrently with the conference, the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, in collaboration with Fondazione Gramsci in Rome, has organized a major exhibition, “Gramsci and Americanism. The Prison Notebooks” (October 22 – November 19), which brings to America for the first time a selection of Antonio Gramsci’s famous Prison Notebooks, along with a collection of books and magazines that the Italian politician and philosopher kept with him during his imprisonment from 1926 to 1934.