Louis Althusser, Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'état [Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses]

Robert Clark (The Literary Encyclopedia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Critical Theory
Political Philosophy

Dates

First circulation or publication 1970

Places

France (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Essays/ Lectures (any)

Resources

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Althusser’s famous essay “Ideology and the Ideological Apparatus of the State” was published in French in the journal

La Pensée

in 1970 and first translated into English by Ben Brewster for the collection

Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays

(London: New Left Books, 1971). The essay was regarded by Althusser as preliminary, and subtitled “Notes towards an Investigation”, but it became immediately influential on Leftist thought and its revisions to Marxist theories of ideology are apparent in much cultural theory of the following decades.

In this essay Althusser recalled attention to Marx’s idea that a primary necessity for any social system was the “reproduction of the conditions of production” (Marx to Kugelman, 11 July 1868, in Selected Correspondence, p. 209). In

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2195 words

Citation: Clark, Robert. "Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d'état". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 October 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30740, accessed 16 April 2024.]

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