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by Asef Bayat
“What would Gramsci think of our current predicaments?” wondered the young leftist mayor of the Italian city of Cagliari, Massimo Zedda. “He would probably think that things have improved, but we also have many problems in Sardinia … That’s why we need to organize.” With this proclamation, the blue-jeaned mayor declared 2017 the “Year of Gramsci,” and opened the conference “A Century of Revolutions: Gramscian Paths in the World.” It was a fitting moment to revisit the life and work of Antonio Gramsci on April 27, the 80th anniversary of his death, in a year that also marks the centenary of the Russian Revolution, and seven years into the turbulence of the Arab uprisings.