From: "Stuart Elden" <stuart.elden-AT-clara.co.uk>
Subject: Henri Lefebvre
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 13:40:22 -0000


Jan

Those are big questions. Lefebvre (1901-91) wrote over sixty books on a huge
range of topics. Some of the most important:-

La conscience mystifiee, with Norbert Guterman, 1936
La materialisme dialectique, 1940/Dialectical Materialism, 1968
L'existentialisme, 1946
Critique de la vie quotidienne, Three Volumes, 1947, 1961, 1981/Critique of
Everyday Life, 1991 (Vol I)
Metaphilosophie: Prolegomenes, 1965
La fin de l'histoire: Epilegomenes, 1970
La production de l'espace, 1974/The Production of Space, 1991
Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche ou le royamme des ombres, 1975
De l'Etat, Four Volumes, 1976-8
Le retour de la dialectique: 12 mots clefs, 1986
Elements de rythmanalyse: Introduction a la connaissance de rythmes, 1992

La materialisme dialectique is the best overview of his reading of Marx; La
production de l'espace and Critique de la vie quotidienne give some of the
most explicit relations to Heidegger. Being rather crude about it, it seems
to me that Lefebvre reads Heidegger rather as Marx read Hegel - he sets out
some important areas of investigation (in this case space/place, everyday
life, dwelling, the political, overcoming metaphysics, etc.) but needs to be
subjected to a radical critique, in order to make his thought more concrete
and demystified.

Lefebvre has become very popular in geography and some other areas recently
largely due to the translations of the Critique of Everyday Life and The
Production of Space. One of the problems of that reception - it seems to
me - has been that it has been at the neglect of his philosophical and
political concerns. I'm writing a book on Lefebvre which tries to put these
at the centre of the interpretation.

Best wishes

Stuart



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