It is useful to divide post-war Italian intellectual culture into three distinct yet overlapping phases. Accordingly, the first period --1944 to 1968 --distinguishes itself by a systematic process of institution building that promoted knowledge organisation from a Marxist perspective. Against opposing ideas from the centre (Crocean liberal secularism and catholic modernity) and the right of centre (conservative Catholicism), Marxist intellectuals increasingly hegemonised the public sphere.

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... tant currents --phenomenology, hermeneutics, semiotics, positivism, existentialism, textual criticism, Neo-Hegelianism, structural linguistics --used Marxist ideas as positive and negative points of reference. 1968 signalled the triumph of Marxism in Italy. The second period, from 1968 to 1986, was marked by a massive production of cultural knowledge from within the Marxist paradigm, but also by an increasing fragmentation of the left. As a result, turbulent struggles emerged between various Marxist forces. There also re-emerged philosophical tendencies inspired by Husserl, Heidegger, Levinas and others that opposed Marxist interpretations of history, the subject and agency. The third period, from 1986 to 1999, witnessed the dismantling of the Marxist project. Positions derived