Society as Judgment

🔓The pressure of shame is ever-present, the journey of "returning" is endless. 📖Sequel to the phenomenal sociological autobiography "Returning to Reims" Contemporary famous thinker | Author of "Michel Foucault" Didier Eribon Another powerful work reflecting on class stratification and identity issues From a small-town youth from a humble background to a renowned intellectual Deconstruct the self and seek the possibility of "appeal" for the submissive. +++ “For me, a certain force of necessity compelled me to write Returning to Reims. Now, I must embark on its sequel.” On the cover of the republished "Returning to Reims" there is an old photograph of Eribon, in which he deliberately cut out his father, who was beside him in the picture. Starting from a reflection on this symbolic detail, the author explores, with greater candor and deeper introspection, personal narratives and social reflections that were not fully developed in "Returning to Reims": the indelible shame in his life trajectory, and the contradictory and subtle relationship with his original family, the working class, and working-class culture. With the courage to confront this shame directly, the author progressively reveals the violence imposed by omnipresent social judgments, offering the possibility of "appeal" for oppressed and submissive individuals. +++ 【Editor's Recommendation】 The focus of this book is not on "me", but on social reality, on the hierarchy it constantly displays and its omnipresent judgments. ✒️ 1. Following "Returning to Reims", this is another profound work by Didier Eribon, a contemporary renowned thinker and author of "Michel Foucault", reflecting on class and identity issues and criticizing social violence. Published in 2009, "Returning to Reims", a work integrating sociological analysis with self-writing, received widespread acclaim globally and reignited numerous debates on class and identity issues. However, Eribon frankly admits that even after writing an entire book about shame, we are likely still unable to overcome it. This long journey of reshaping oneself and society, this "return", is never-ending... 2. The embarrassment of a working-class background, the shadow of the original family environment... From a small-town youth from the lower class to a renowned intellectual, this difficult upward trajectory in social status is entangled with inescapable shame, suffering, and contradictions. For Eribon, the social hierarchical system is like the "invisible and untouchable court" in Kafka's writings: "We cannot understand the verdicts rendered by this court, but we must live under its heavy pressure." By rediscovering the voices that were absent from history among the lower classes and minority groups, and deconstructing the logic of class systems and power operations, the author poses a powerful challenge to unquestionable social judgments, creating the possibility of "appeal" for the violently submissive. 3. An example of dissecting the "self" in reflections pointing to social reality, frankly confronting inner shame, and integrating personal experience, literary reading, and sociological theory. "Both the most subtle elements of daily life and the most profound expressions of academic and literary culture," through this writing style that lies between autobiography, sociology, and literature, Eribon is able to further explore the intertwined personal narratives and social reflections from his previous work. Starting from his personal life trajectory, he brings Bourdieu, Foucault, Sartre, Beauvoir, Raymond Williams into dialogue with Annie Ernaux, Gide, Proust, Claude Simon, and Assia Djebar. +++ 【Recommendations from Experts】 Eribon's goal is by no means to write an autobiography in the traditional sense; on the contrary, he aims to illuminate and critique certain aspects of society based on his own social experience, thereby in some way universalizing and exemplifying his personal trajectory. In short, this echoes a Hugoesque theme: "When I speak to you of myself, I am speaking to you of yourselves." —Alexis Pierçon-Gnezda, Lectures Feminist thought is one of the important clues further explored in the book "Society as Judgment". This work, published four years after "Returning to Reims", aims precisely to "deepen the interwoven narratives and reflections of the previous work." In the book, the phenomenon of two grandmothers responding very differently to similar social conditions—that is, the same social situation can give rise to different stances—is interpreted through the theoretical lens of Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex"; while the mother's life is re-examined through the prism of Annie Ernaux's "A Woman". —Anne-Marie David, Spirale

出版日期/Publication Date：April 1, 2026
出版社/Publisher：上海译文出版社
出品方/Imprint:Lucida Bright
页数/Page: 256