Les Communautés paysannes pyrénéennes (origine, développement, déclin). Étude de sociologie historique Une République pastorale : la vallée de Campan : Organisation, vie et histoire d'une communauté pyrénéenne (1954)
Lefebvre joined the PCF in 1928 and became one of the most prominent French Marxist intellectuals during the second quarter of the 20th century, before joining theFrench resistance.[7] He wrote a series of works on the history of ideas and sought to establishKarl Marx as a philosopher figure; it was through his introductory texts thatLouis Althusser andAlbert Camus first encountered Marx.[8] Among his works was a highly influential, anti-Stalinist text on dialectics titledDialectical Materialism (1940). Under theVichy regime, he had his teacher's licence revoked byJérôme Carcopino'sMinistry of Education on 11 March 1941 on account of his political views and PCF membership, and worked withGeorges-Henri Rivière on ethnographic projects concerningrural crafts for theMusée national des Arts et Traditions Populaires in thePyrenees until 1946.[9] From September 1945[8] to 1949, he was the director ofRadiodiffusion Française, a French radio broadcaster inToulouse, and from 1947 he taught at a high school in the same city.[8] In 1947, he published the first volume of his major workThe Critique of Everyday Life.
Aiming for an academic career to secure time for his writing, Lefebvre consideredMaurice Halbwachs as a potential thesis advisor in the first post-war years, then failed to persuade theToulouse University geographer Daniel Faucher to accept a sociological thesis proposal on theCampan valley in 1946.[8] In April 1948, he unsuccessfully applied for the post vacated by the sociologistGeorges Gurvitch at theUniversity of Strasbourg.[8] By 1948, he began doctoral research at the Sorbonne, initially (until at least 1952) supervised by the geographerAndré Cholley [fr].[10] In 1954, he defended his two dissertations under the direction of the sociologistGeorges Davy:Les Communautés paysannes pyrénéennes (origine, développement, déclin). Étude de sociologie historique (primary thesis) andUne République pastorale : la vallée de Campan : Organisation, vie et histoire d'une communauté pyrénéenne (secondary thesis).[11]
According to his own recollection, he influenced and became involved with theavant-garde architectural groupCoBrA (1948–1951), formed in Paris byConstant Nieuwenhuys,Asger Jorn and others.[12] His early work on method was applauded and borrowed centrally by the philosopherJean-Paul Sartre inCritique of Dialectical Reason (1960). During Lefebvre's thirty-year stint with the PCF, he was chosen to publish critical attacks on opposed theorists, especially existentialists like Sartre and Lefebvre's former colleague Nizan,[13] only to intentionally get himself expelled from the party for his own heterodox theoretical and political opinions in the late 1950s. He then went from serving as a primary intellectual for the PCF to becoming one of France's most important critics of the PCF's politics (e.g. immediately, the lack of an opinion on Algeria, and more generally, the partial apologism for and continuation ofStalinism) and intellectual thought (i.e.structuralism, especially the work ofLouis Althusser).[14]
In 1961, Lefebvre became professor of sociology at theUniversity of Strasbourg, before joining the faculty at the new university atNanterre in 1965.[15] He was one of the most respected professors, and he had influenced and analysed theMay 1968 student revolt.[16] Lefebvre introduced the concept of theright to the city in his 1968 bookLe Droit à la ville[17][18] (the publication of the book predates the May 1968 revolts which took place in many French cities). Following the publication of this book, Lefebvre wrote several influential works on cities, urbanism, and space, includingThe Production of Space (1974), which became one of the most influential and heavily cited works ofurban theory. By the 1970s, Lefebvre had also published some of the first critical statements on the work ofpost-structuralists, especiallyMichel Foucault.[19] During the following years he was involved in the editorial group ofArguments, aNew Left magazine which largely served to enable the French public to familiarize themselves with Central European revisionism.[20]
Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary,Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991, less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism.[21]
One of Lefebvre's most important contributions to social thought is the idea of the "critique of everyday life", which he pioneered in the 1930s. Lefebvre defined everyday life dialectically as the intersection of "illusion and truth, power and helplessness; the intersection of the sector man controls and the sector he does not control",[22] and is where the perpetually transformative conflict occurs between diverse, specific rhythms: the body's polyrhythmic bundles of natural rhythms, physiological (natural) rhythms, and social rhythms (Lefebvre and Régulier, 1985: 73).[23] The everyday was, in short, the space in which all life occurred, and between which all fragmented activities took place. It was the residual.[24] While the theme presented itself in many works, it was most notably outlined in his eponymous three-volume study, which came out in individual installments, decades apart, in 1947, 1961, and 1981.
Lefebvre argued that everyday life was an underdeveloped sector compared to technology and production, and moreover that in the mid 20th century, capitalism changed such that everyday life was to be colonized. In this zone of everydayness (boredom) shared by everyone in society regardless of class or specialty, autocritique of everyday realities of boredom vs. societal promises of free time and leisure, could lead to people understanding and then revolutionizing their everyday lives. This was essential to Lefebvre because everyday life was where he saw capitalism surviving and reproducing itself. Without revolutionizing everyday life, capitalism would continue to diminish the quality of everyday life, and inhibit real self-expression. The critique of everyday life was crucial because it was for him only through the development of the conditions of human life—rather than abstract control of productive forces—that humans could reach a concrete utopian existence.[25]
Lefebvre's work on everyday life was heavily influential in French theory, particularly for theSituationists, as well as in politics (e.g. for the May 1968 student revolts).[26] The third volume has also recently influenced scholars writing about digital technology and information in the present day,[27] since it has a section dealing with this topic at length, including analysis of theNora-Minc Report [fr] (1977); key aspects ofinformation theory; and other general discussion of the "colonisation" of everyday life through information communication technologies as "devices" or "services".
Lefebvre dedicated a great deal of his philosophical writings to understanding the importance of (the production of) space in what he called the reproduction of social relations of production. This idea is the central argument in the bookThe Survival of Capitalism, written as a sort of prelude toLa Production de l'espace (1974) (The Production of Space).
Lefebvre contends that there are different modes of production of space (i.e.spatialization) from natural space ('absolute space') to more complex spaces and flows whose meaning is produced in a social way (i.e. social space).[28] Lefebvre analyzes each historical mode as a three-part dialectic between everyday practices and perceptions (le perçu), representations or theories of space (le conçu) and the spatialimaginary of the time (le vécu).[29]
Lefebvre's argument inThe Production of Space is that space is a social product, or a complex social construction (based on values, and the social production of meanings) which affects spatial practices and perceptions. Lefebvre argued that every society—and, therefore, every mode of production—produces a certain space, its own space.
Lefebvre's concept has been criticised: e.g. inThe Urban Question,Manuel Castells. Many responses to Castells are provided inThe Survival of Capitalism, and some such asAndy Merrifield[30] argue that the acceptance of those critiques in the academic world would be a motive for Lefebvre's effort in writing the long and theoretically denseThe Production of Space. In "Actually-Existing Success: Economics, Aesthetics, and the Specificity of (Still-)Socialist Urbanism,"Michal Murawski critiques Lefebvre's dismissal of actually existing socialism by showing how socialist states produced differential space.[31]
1925 "Positions d'attaque et de défense du nouveau mysticisme",Philosophies 5–6 (March). pp. 471–506. (Pt. 2 of the "Philosophy of Consciousness" (Philosophie de la conscience) project on being, consciousness and identity, originally proposed as a DES[32] thesis toLéon Brunschvicg and eventually abandoned—Lefebvre's DES 1920 thesis was titledPascal et Jansénius (Pascal andJansenius).)[1][33]
1934 withNorbert Guterman,Morceaux choisis de Karl Marx, Paris: NRF (numerous reprintings).
1936 with Norbert Guterman,La Conscience mystifiée, Paris: Gallimard (new ed. Paris: Le Sycomore, 1979).
1937Le nationalisme contre les nations (preface byPaul Nizan), Paris:Éditions sociales internationales (reprinted, Paris: Méridiens-Klincksliek, 1988, Collection "Analyse institutionnelle", introductionMichel Trebitsch [fr], postscript Henri Lefebvre).
1938Hitler au pouvoir, bilan de cinq années de fascisme en Allemagne, Paris: Bureau d'Éditions.
1938 with Norbert Guterman,Morceaux choisis de Hegel, Paris: Gallimard (3 reprintings 1938–1939; in the reprinted Collection "Idées", 2 vols. 1969).
1938 with Norbert Guterman,Cahiers de Lénine sur la dialectique de Hegel, Paris: Gallimard.
1961Critique de la vie quotidienne II, Fondements d'une sociologie de la quotidienneté, Paris: L'Arche, trans. John Moore,Critique of Everyday Life Volume II: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday, London: Verso, 2008.
1962Introduction à la modernité, Paris. Trans. John Moore,Introduction to Modernity: Twelve Preludes, September 1959–May 1961, London: Verso.
1963La vallée de Campan - Etude de sociologie rurale, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
1965Métaphilosophie, foreword byJean Wahl, Paris: Éditions de Minuit, Collection "Arguments". Trans. David Fernbach and ed. Stuart Elden asMetaphilosophy, London: Verso, 2016
1965La Proclamation de la Commune, Paris: Gallimard, Collection "Trente Journées qui ont fait la France".
1966La Sociologie de Marx, Paris: PUF. Trans. Norbert Guterman,Sociology of Marx, New York: Pantheon.
1968Le Droit à la ville, Paris: Anthropos (2nd ed.); Paris: Ed. du Seuil, Collection "Points". English translation inWritings on Cities, 1996.
1968La Vie quotidienne dans le monde moderne, Paris: Gallimard, Collection "Idées". Trans. Sacha Rabinovitch asEveryday Life in the Modern World, Allen Lane, 1971.
1968L'Irruption de Nanterre au sommet, Paris: Syllepse, 2nd ed. 1998. Trans. Alfred Ehrenfeld,The Explosion: From Nanterre to the Summit, New York: Monthly Review Press.
1970La Révolution urbaine, Paris: Gallimard, Collection "Idées". Trans. Robert Bononno,The Urban Revolution, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
1970Du rural à l'urbain, Paris: Anthropos. First half trans. Robert Bononno inOn the Rural: Economy, Sociology, Geography, ed. Stuart Elden and Adam David Morton, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
1972La Pensée marxiste et la ville, Tournai and Paris: Casterman. Trans. Robert Bononno,Marxist Thought and the City, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
1973La Survie du capitalisme; la re-production des rapports de production. Partial trans. Frank Bryant asThe Survival of Capitalism. London: Allison and Busby, 1976. (The French book includes material originally inL'Irruption, translated inThe Explosion, 1969.)
1974La Production de l'espace, Paris: Anthropos. Trans.Donald Nicholson-Smith,The Production of Space, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991. *1991
1974 withLeszek Kołakowski "Evolution or Revolution", inReflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind, ed. F. Elders, London: Souvenir. pp. 199–267.ISBN0-285-64742-3
1975Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, ou le royaume des ombres, Paris: Tournai, Casterman. Collection "Synthèses contemporaines".ISBN2-203-23109-2. Trans. David Fernbach asHegel, Marx, Nietzsche or the Realm of Shadows, London: Verso, 2020.
1975Le Temps des méprises: Entretiens avec Claude Glayman, Paris: Stock.ISBN2-234-00174-9
1978 with Catherine Régulier,La révolution n'est plus ce qu'elle était, Paris: Éditions Libres-Hallier (German trans. Munich, 1979).ISBN2-264-00849-0
1976-78De l'État, Paris: UGE, four volumes, Collection "10/18".
1981Critique de la vie quotidienne, III. De la modernité au modernisme (Pour une métaphilosophie du quotidien) Paris: L'Arche. Trans. Gregory Elliott,Critique of Everyday Life Volume III: From Modernity to Modernism (Towards a Metaphilosophy of Daily Life), London: Verso, 2008.
1985 with Catherine Régulier-Lefebvre,Le projet rythmanalytique Communications 41. pp. 191–199. Included inRhythmanalysis, 2004.
1986 with Serge Renaudie and Pierre Guilbaud, "International Competition for the New Belgrade Urban Structure Improvement", inAutogestion, or Henri Lefebvre in New Belgrade, Vancouver: Fillip Editions.ISBN978-0-9738133-5-7
1988 "Toward a Leftist Cultural Politics: Remarks Occasioned by the Centenary of Marx's Death" (trans. D. Reifman), inMarxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed.Lawrence Grossberg andCary Nelson, Urbana: University of Illinois Press; New York: Macmillan. pp. 75–88.ISBN0-252-01108-2
1990Du Contrat de citoyenneté, Paris: Syllepse.
1991 with Patricia Latour andFrancis Combes [fr],Conversation avec Henri Lefebvre, Paris: Messidor, Collection "Libres propos".
1992 with Catherine Régulier-Lefebvre,Éléments de rythmanalyse: Introduction à la connaissance des rythmes, preface by René Lorau, Paris: Ed. Syllepse, Collection "Explorations et découvertes". English translation by Stuart Elden and Gerald Moore:Rhythmanalysis: Space, time and everyday life, Continuum, New York, 2004.
1996Writings on Cities, trans. and ed. Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.ISBN0-631-19187-9. IncludesThe Right to the City and other essays.
2002Méthodologie des Sciences: Un inédit, Paris: Anthropos.
2003Key Writings, ed. Stuart Elden, Elizabeth Lebas, Eleonore Kofman, London/New York: Continuum.
2009State, Space, World: Selected Essays, ed.Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden, trans. Gerald Moore, Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
2014Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment, ed. Łukasz Stanek, trans. Robert Bononno, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. First publication in any language of a book written in 1973.
2022On the Rural: Economy, Sociology, Geography, ed. Stuart Elden and Adam David Morton, trans. Robert Bononno, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Includes the first half of his 1970 bookDu rural à l’urbain and supplementary texts.
^Henri Lefebvre and Leszek Kołakowski.Evolution or Revolution; F. Elders (ed.),Reflexive Water: The Basic Concerns of Mankind, London: Souvenir. pp. 199–267.ISBN0-285-64742-3
Simon, D., 'Une plaidoirie académique. Henri Lefebvre proteste contre son exclusion du CNRS',Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, 42 (2023), pp. 179-196.
