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Issue 1 · December 2024 · Special edition
Algerian Inquiries
Read each contribution online or as a PDF, or download the whole issue.
Editorial
On the occasion of the exhibition of Pierre Bourdieu’s Algerian photographs at the Centre Pompidou Museum in Paris, from October 2024 to March 2025, the Pierre Bourdieu Foundation is launching an international newsletter published twice a year. The Foundation was created for coordinating international research projects and managing the collection of Bourdieu’s Algerian photographs.
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The principal aim of the newsletter is to inform a global readership about publications, conferences, workshops and discussions, which in a variety of ways build on Bourdieu’s sociology and put it to work in novel domains. The sheer impossibility of keeping up with activities in a plurality of research areas in ever more countries makes it relevant to bring at least some of this information together. By doing so, we hope to counter intellectual fragmentation, stimulate interdisciplinary exchanges and foster collaboration across geographic boundaries, and thus contribute to better informed, and more reflexive research and teaching practices.
Rather than promoting theoretical exegesis or erudite commentary, the newsletter will report, very broadly, on research putting Bourdieu’s theories to work across the social and human sciences. It is committed to avoiding hero-worship and interpretative disputes disconnected from empirical inquiry.
Although the contents and style of Practical Sense are a collective effort in progress, we intend to publish short, hitherto untranslated texts as well as archival pieces by Bourdieu himself (in collaboration with the Bourdieu Archives), call attention to lesser known aspects of his oeuvre, report about ongoing research in different areas, and, explore questions of international circulation, transnational comparisons, and the formation and functioning of global fields.
In addition, Practical Sense will publish short articles and a range of more vivid and accessible papers: interviews, critical reflections, conference reports, bibliographical and other information. In the highly bureaucratized research environments of today, with its scientific hierarchies and layers of power relations, we will use the editorial and stylistic flexibility of a newsletter to stimulate undervalued genres of publishing, raise critical questions about the state of social science research, and contribute to its advancement and flowering. We welcome contributions from around the world to fill these various rubrics (they should be sent to the editors at practicalsense@protonmail.com).
The newsletter is published in English, as it is the most widely used language in international scholarly communication, but at a later stage other language editions may be considered. Contributions written in languages other than English, can be published on the newsletter’s website in their original language.
Each issue of Practical Sense will have a thematic section and an open section. The thematic part of the first issue takes up Bourdieu’s Algerian studies, including his photographs, as a starting point for a better understanding of how this lesser-known part of his work came about, its position and implications in contemporary debates about postcolonialism and the efforts at decolonizing the canon and the curriculum. It also discusses recent publications about Bourdieu’s early work and their intellectual and material conditions.
The next two issues will appear in 2025. Among the topics we’re considering for the thematic part are questions of transnationalism, reflexivity (arguably the single most important feature of Bourdieu’s sociological practice), and, leveraging the 50 year’s anniversary of the journal Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales (founded by Bourdieu in 1975), scholarly publishing, past and present.
The open part of the newsletter is flexible, but it will contain regular rubrics (reports about workshops and conferences, short book reviews, bibliographical information, etc.).
In the coming years, Practical Sense will be edited by a small international group of younger scholars, supervised by a scientific board. Editorship is temporary and will rotate regularly. In addition to the editors and board members, we will try to build up a more permanent network of correspondents, who can inform the editors about significant debates, events, and publications in their country or region of origin.
The sale of Bourdieu’s photographs to the fund of the Pompidou Museum will make possible the functioning of the newsletter during its first few years. Its continuation, however, will depend on the reception and the interest it generates, as well as on donations, subsidies or institutional support. We are very grateful for all suggestions about the content and organization of Practical Sense as well as for suggestions regarding material support (please write to practicalsense@protonmail.com).
The editorial team
Special edition
Matthias Fringant & Jéssica Ronconi
Some Remarks Regarding Debates About Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Kabyle House”
Franck Poupeau & Tassadit Yacine
The Translations of Pierre Bourdieu’s Books on Algeria
Matthias Fringant & Jéssica Ronconi
Recent books
Inspired by / About Pierre Bourdieu’s Work
2022
Buchholz, L. (2022) The Global Rules of Art: The Emergence and Divisions of a Cultural World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Da Mota Rocha, M. É. (2022) Bourdieu à brasileira [Brazilian Bourdieu]. Rio de Janeiro: Confraria do Vento.
Gayon, V. (2022) Épistémocratie. Enquête sur le gouvernement international du capitalisme [Epistemocracy. Investigating the International Government of Capitalism]. Paris: Raisons d’Agir.
Pérez, A. (2022) Combattre en sociologues. Pierre Bourdieu et Abdelmalek Sayad dans une guerre de libération (Algérie, 1958 – 1964). Marseille: Agone.
Schultheis, F., Egger, S. (2022) Pierre Bourdieu und die Fotografie. Visuelle Formen Soziologisher Erkenntis. Eine Rekonstruktion [Pierre Bourdieu and Photography. Visual Forms of Sociological Knowledge. A Reconstruction]. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Schultheis, F. and Hüser, C. (2022) Pierre Bourdieu. Konversion des Blicks. Die Kamera im Dienst soziologischer Erkenntis [Pierre Bourdieu. Conversion of the Gaze. The Camera in the Service of Sociological Knowledge]. Vienna: Turia + Kant.
Schultheis, F. and Hüser, C. (2022) Geschlechtverhältnisse. Pierre Bourdieus visuelle Soziologie [Gender Relations. Pierre Bourdieu’s Visual Sociology]. Wiesbaden: Springer.
Wacquant, L. (2022) Body & Soul. Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. Expanded Anniversary Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wacquant, L. (2022) Voyage au pays des boxeurs [A Journey to the Land of Boxers]. Paris: La Découverte.
Wacquant, L. (2022) The Invention of the ‘Underclass’: A Study in the Politics of Knowledge. Cambridge: Polity.
Yacine, T. (2022) Pierre Bourdieu en Algérie (1956 – 1961). Témoignages [Pierre Bourdieu in Algeria (1956 – 1961). Testimonials]. Vulaines-Sur-Seine: Croquant.
2023
Akram, S. (2023) Bourdieu, Habitus and Field: A Critical Realist Approach. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
Boschetti, A. (2023) Teoria dei campi, Transnational Turn e storia letteraria [Field Theory, Transnational Turn and Literary History]. Roma: Quodlibet.
Cassier, M. (2023) Il y a des alternatives. Une autre histoire des médicaments (XIXe- XXe siècle) [There Are Alternatives. Another History of Medicines (19th – 21st centuries)] Paris: Le Seuil.
Darmon, M. (2023) Socialization, Cambridge: Polity.
Duval, J., Heilbron, J. and Issenhuth, P. (eds.) (2022 hardback, 2023 paperback) Pierre Bourdieu et l’art de l’invention scientifique. Enquêter au centre de sociologie européenne (1959-1969) [Pierre Bourdieu and the Craft of Scientific Invention. Inquiring at the Center for European Sociology (1959-1969)] Paris: Classiques Garnier.
Garcia, A., Garcia-Parpet, M.-F., Poupeau, F., Pérez A. and Rocha M. E. (eds.) (2023) Bourdieu et les Amériques. Une internationale scientifique: genèse, pratiques et programmes de recherche [Bourdieu and the Americas. A Scientific International: Genesis, Practices and Research Programs]. Aubervilliers: Éditions de l’IHEAL.
Génot, P. and Thomas, O. (2023) Bourdieu. Une enquête algérienne [Bourdieu. An Algerian Inquiry]. Paris: Steinkis.
Guéraut, É. (2023) Le déclin de la petite bourgeoise culturelle [The Decline of the Cultural Petit Bourgeoisie]. Paris: Raisons d’Agir.
Jurt, J. (2023) Le champ littéraire. Le concept de Pierre Bourdieu : contextes, théories, pratiques [The Literary Field. Pierre Bourdieu’s Concept: Contexts, Theories, Practices]. Paris : Honoré Champion.
Lignier, W. (2023) La société est en nous. Comment le monde social engendre des individus [Society is Within Us. How the Social World Creates Individuals]. Paris: Le Seuil.
Mauger, G. (2023) Avec Bourdieu. Un parcours sociologique [With Bourdieu. A Sociological Journey]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Pérez, A. (2023) Bourdieu and Sayad Against Empire. Forging Sociology in Anticolonial Struggle. Cambridge: Polity.
Rivière, T. (2023) La Distinction. Librement inspirée du livre de Pierre Bourdieu [Distinction. Freely Inspired by Pierre Bourdieu’s Book]. Paris: La Découverte/Delcourt.
Schultheis, F. and Hüser, C. (2023) Habitat und Habitus. Pierre Bourdieus visuelle Soziologie [Habitat and Habitus. Pierre Bourdieu’s Visual Sociology] Wiesbaden: Springer.
Steinmetz, G. (2023) The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. French Sociology and the Overseas Empire. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Wacquant, L. (2023) Bourdieu in the City: Challenging Urban Theory. Cambridge: Polity.
Wacquant, L. (2023) Misère de l’ethnographie de la misère. Paris: Raisons d’Agir.
Editions / Translations of Pierre Bourdieu’s Work
2022
Bourdieu, P. (2022) L’intérêt au désintéressement. Cours au Collège de France 1987-1989 [The Interest in Disinterestedness: Lectures at the College de France 1987-1989]. Paris: Seuil/Raisons d’Agir. Edited by Duval, J.
Bourdieu, P. (2022) Microcosmes. Théorie des champs [Microcosms. Field Theory]. Paris: Raisons d’Agir. Edited by Bourdieu, J. and Poupeau, F.
Bourdieu, P. (2022) Retour sur la réflexivité. [Return to Reflexivity] Paris: EHESS. Edited by Bourdieu, J. and Heilbron, J.
Bourdieu, P. (2022) Principles of Vision: General Sociology, Volume 4: Lectures at the Collège de France 1984 – 85. Cambridge: Polity. Translated to English by Collier, P.
2023
Bourdieu, P. (2023) Impérialismes. Circulation internationale des idées et luttes pour l’universel [Imperialisms. International Circulation of Ideas and Struggles for the Universal]. Paris: Raisons d’Agir. Edited by Poupeau, F. and Sapiro, G.
Bourdieu, P. (2023) Politics and Sociology: General Sociology, Volume 5: Lectures at the Collège de France 1985 – 86. Cambridge: Polity. Translated to English by Collier, P.
Bourdieu, P. (2023) Sociologia Geral. Vol. 3: As Formas Do Capital. Curso No College De France (1983-1984), Editora Vozes. Translated to Portuguese by Ribeiro, F.
Bourdieu, P. (2023) Sociologia Geral. Vol. 4: Princípios de visão. Curso no Collège de France (1984-1985), Editora Vozes. Translated to Portuguese by Ribeiro, F.
Events
Thinking With Bourdieu Today: Interdisciplinary and Transnational Approaches
NYU, 25–27.04.2024
Also in this issue
Camille Abajo is PhD Candidate in Sociology at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
Paola Boué is PhD Candidate in Sociology at The City University of New York, United States of America
Adrien Delespierre is Associate Professor in Sociology at Université de Tours, France
Matthias Fringant is Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at Université Clermont Auvergne, France
Christine Frisinghelli is the former Director of the international contemporary art institution Camera Austria, Austria
Pascal Génot in Doctor in Communication Studies and Graphic Novelist, France
Johan Heilbron is Director of Research Emeritus at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Guest Professor at Uppsala universitet, France and Netherlands
Vincent Hugoo is Doctor in Sociology from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France
Amín Pérez is Associate Professor of Sociology at Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
Franck Poupeau is Director of Research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France
Carolina Pulici is Professor of Sociology at Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Brazil
Jéssica Ronconi is PhD Candidate in Sociology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Universidade Federal de São Paulo, France and Brazil
Franz Schultheis is Senior Professor of Sociology at Zeppelin Universität, Germany
George Steinmetz is Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Sociology at University of Michigan, United States of America
Martin Strauss is PhD Candidate in Sociology and Philosophy at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Universität Wien, France and Austria
Tassadit Yacine is Director of Studies at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, France
Ohad Zeltzer Zubida is PhD Candidate in Sociology at Princeton University, United States of America
Officina Bourdieu is an Italian seminar focusing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Italy