Philippe Corcuff


Philippe Corcuff is a French academic, full professor in political science at the Institut d'études politiques de Lyon since October 1992 and member of the CERLIS laboratory since October 2003. Politically committed to the left, with a trajectory that took him from social democracy to pragmatic anarchism, via the ecologists and the New Anti-Capitalist Party, he defines himself as an “anti-globalization and libertarian activist”. He was a columnist for the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo from 2001 to 2004.
Sociologically speaking, he had started in study with a socio-ethnographic approach, within the scope of his thesis, the building of social groups, through railroaders’ trade unionism and, wider, the workers' movement. He offers then a reading of Pierre Bourdieu’s critical sociology, emphasizing the “post-marxist” aspect of his social criticism, while pointing out several contradictions. He did so especially in the book Bourdieu autrement. In this perspective, he linked the critical sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, the pragmatic sociology of Luc Boltanski and the philosophy of emancipation of Jacques Rancière to build a new critical theory, particularly in his book Où est passée la critique sociale?. The re-evaluation of the place of individuality has been one of the axes of this new critical thinking. To explore this new critical theory, he also analyzed products of popular culture, using the notion of language games taken from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and drawing on Stanley Cavell's philosophy of cinema. From the 2010s onwards, he has been interested in a critical political theory of the extreme right-wingisation of public spaces in France and how the confusion of ideas on the left contributes to it, with his book La grande confusion. Comment l'extrême droite gagne la bataille des idées.

Selected works

  • 1995: Les Nouvelles Sociologies, Paris, Nathan, 128 p. ; 3e ed. en 2011 : Paris, Armand Colin, coll. « 128 », 128 p.
  • 2002: La Société de verre. Pour une éthique de la fragilité, Paris, Armand Colin, coll. "Individu et société", 269 p.
  • 2003: Bourdieu autrement. Fragilités d’un sociologue de combat, Paris, Textuel, coll. "La Discorde", 143 p..
  • 2012: Où est passée la critique sociale ? Penser le global au croisement des savoirs, Paris, La Découverte, coll. "Bibliothèque du MAUSS", 320 p.
  • 2014: Domination et émancipation. Pour un renouveau de la critique sociale, presentation of the debate between Luc Boltanski and Nancy Fraser, Lyon, Presses universitaires de Lyon, coll. "Grands débats : Mode d'emploi", 76 p.
  • 2016: "Repères libertaires et pragmatiques pour des coalitions altermondialistes"/"Anarchist and pragmatist Markers for anti-globalization Coalitions", in Delphine Gardey, Cynthia Kraus, Politiques de coalition. Penser et se mobiliser avec Judith Butler/''Politics of Coalition. Thinking Collective Action with Judith Butler, bilingual French/English edition, Zurich, Editions Seismo, coll. "Questions de genre/Gender Issues"
  • 2009: "Pierre Bourdieu leído de otra manera. Crítica social post-marxista y el problema de la singularidad individual", Cultura y Representaciones Sociales, vol. 4, número 7, pp. 9–26
  • 2020: "De ciertas desventuras de la razón decolonial y poscolonial: homenaje crítico y libertario al cuestionamiento descolonizador", in Gaya Makaran and Pierre Gaussens, Piel blanca, máscaras negras. Critica de la razón decolonial, México, Bajo Tierra Ediciones y Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
  • 2020: Individualidades, común y utopía. Crítica libertaria del populismo de izquierda, preface from José Luis Moreno Pestaña, Madrid, Dado Ediciones, coll. "Disonancias", 210 p.
  • 2021: "Individuality and the contradictions of neocapitalism", in Vesna Stanković Pejnović, Beyond Neoliberalism and Capitalism, Belgrade, Institute for Political Studies, coll. "International Thematic Collection of Papers", pp. 57–73
  • 2021: La grande confusion. Comment l'extrême-droite gagne la bataille des idées, éditions Textuel, coll. "Petite Encyclopédie critique", 672 p.
  • 2021: "Domination and Emancipation in the Current Conjuncture" and "Renewing Critical Theory in an Ultra-Conservative Context: between the Social Sciences, Political Philosophy, and Emancipatory Engagement", in Daniel Benson, Domination and Emancipation. Remaking Critique, Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield International, Series "Reinventing Critical Theory"
  • October 2021: "Progressism and the Challenge of Conservatism", Pouvoirs , n° 179
  • January 2022: "Television Series as Critical Theories: From Current Identarianism to Levinas. American Crime, The Sinner, Sharp Objects, Unorthodox", Open Philosophy, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 105–117, online since 16 December 2021
  • 2022: "Sociology, Social Justice and Emancipation. Towards an Epistemological Compass, Between Fog, Dispersion and Reproblematisation", Postface to Emmanuelle Barozet, Ivan Sainsaulieu, Régis Cortesoro, David Mélo, Where Has Social Justice Gone? From Equality to Experimentation, London, Palgrave Macmillan
  • 2021: "Marx/Bourdieu: Convergences and Tensions, Between Critical Sociology and Philosophy of Emancipation", in Gabriella Paolucci, Bourdieu and Marx. Practices of Critique'', London, Palgrave Macmillan