One of the world's most influential cultural critics, Antonio Gramsci's writings on the interconnection between culture and politics fundamentally changed the way that scholars view both. Among the first to argue that art is not the product of "men of genius" but rather particular historical and social contexts, Gramsci remains one of the most widely read theorists of modern culture.
Antonio Gramsci was a founding member of the Italian Communist Party and spent most of his adult life imprisoned by Benito Mussolini. After his death and the subsequent publication of his Prison Notebooks, he came to be known as one of the twentieth century's foremost cultural critics.
William Boelhower is the Robert Thomas and Rita Wetta Adams Professor of Atlantic and Ethnic Studies Emeritus at Louisiana State University. He is the author, editor, or translator of many books, including Through a Glass Darkly: Ethnic Semiosis in American Literature and New Orleans in the Atlantic World: Between Land and Sea. He cofounded the scholarly journal Atlantic Studies and coedited it from 2004 to 2014.