Gramsci’s prison terminology camouflaged revolutionary concepts against censorship
Evidence
The highly original use here of the word “catharsis” to indicate (roughly speaking) the acquisition of revolutionary consciousness was perhaps suggested to Gramsci by his mental habit of selecting terminology unlikely to alert the suspicions of the censor. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2556
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies that ‘catharsis’ in Gramsci means acquisition of revolutionary consciousness, a coded term.
- QUESTION: What other Gramscian terms beyond ‘catharsis’ were chosen as censor-blind code? Could matter for reading his reception tradition.