Editing Louis Althusser (section)

===Academic life and Communist Party affiliation: 1948–1959===
[[File:Façade de l'École normale supérieure.JPG|thumb|The main entrance to the [[École Normale Supérieure]] on Rue d'Ulm, where Althusser established himself as well-known intellectual]]

In 1948, he was approved to teach in secondary schools but instead made a tutor at the ENS to help students prepare for their own ''agrégation''.{{sfnm|1a1=Ferretter|1y=2006|1p=3|2a1=Lewis|2y=2014}} His performance on the exam—he was the best ranked on the writing part and second on the oral module—guaranteed this change on his occupation.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} He was responsible for offering special courses and tutorials on particular topics and on particular figures from the history of philosophy.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} In 1954, he became {{lang|fr|secrétaire de l'école litteraire}} (secretary of the literary school), assuming responsibilities for management and direction of the school.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} Althusser was deeply influential at the ENS because of the lectures and conferences he organized with participation of leading French philosophers such as [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Jacques Lacan]].{{sfn|Stolze|2013|p=8}} He also influenced a generation of French philosophers and French philosophy in general{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}}—among his students were Derrida, [[Pierre Bourdieu]], [[Michel Foucault]], and [[Michel Serres]].{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=86}} In total, Althusser spent 35 years in the ENS, working there until November 1980.{{sfnm|1a1=Jackson|1y=1996|1p=136|2a1=Schrift|2y=2006|2p=86}}

Parallel to his academic life, Althusser joined the [[French Communist Party]] (''Parti communiste français'', PCF) in October 1948.<!--{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=3}} --> In the early postwar years, the PCF was one of the most influential political forces and many French intellectuals joined it.<!--{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=3}} --> Althusser himself declared, "Communism was in the air in 1945, after the German defeat, the victory at Stalingrad, and the hopes and lessons of the Resistance."{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=3}} Althusser was primarily active on the "Peace Movement" section and kept for a few years his Catholic beliefs;{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=3}} in 1949, he published in the ''L'Évangile captif'' (The captive gospel), the tenth book of the Jeunesse de l'Église (the youth wing of Church), an article on the historic situation of Catholicism in response to the question: "Is the good news preached to the men today?"{{sfn|Balibar|2005b|p=267}} In it, he wrote about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the labour movement, advocating at the same time for social emancipation and the Church "religious reconquest".{{sfn|Biard|1995|p=140}} There was mutual hostility between these two organizations—in the early 1950s, the Vatican prohibited Catholics from membership in the worker priests and left-wing movements—and it certainly affected Althusser since he firmly believed in this combination.{{sfn|Ferretter|2006|p=3}}

Initially afraid of joining the party because of ENS's opposition to communists, Althusser did so when he was made a tutor—when membership became less likely to affect his employment—and he even created at ENA the ''Cercle Politzer'', a Marxist study group.<!--{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} --> Althusser also introduced colleagues and students to the party and worked closely with the communist cell of the ENS.<!--{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} --> But his professionalism made him avoid Marxism and Communism in his classes; instead, he helped students depending on the demands of their ''agrégation''.{{sfn|Lewis|2014|}} In the early 1950s, Althusser distanced himself from his youthful political and philosophical ideals{{sfn|Stolze|2013|p=8}} and from Hegel, whose teachings he considered a "bourgeois" philosophy.{{sfn|Biard|1995|p=140}} Starting from 1948, he studied history of philosophy and gave lectures on it; the first was about [[Plato]] in 1949.{{sfn|IMEC|1997|p=82}} In 1949–1950, he gave a lecture about [[René Descartes]],{{efn|He also lectured about Descartes' thought relation to [[Nicolas Malebranche]], as can be found in an inventory of his archives by the [[Institute for Contemporary Publishing Archives]] (L'Institut mémoires de l'édition contemporaine, IMEC).{{sfn|IMEC|1997|p=84}} }} and wrote a thesis titled "Politics and Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century" and a small study on [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]]'s "[[Second Discourse]]". He presented the thesis to [[Jean Hyppolite]] and [[Vladimir Jankélévitch]] in 1950 but it was rejected.{{sfn|Schrift|2006|p=86}} These studies were nonetheless valuable because Althusser later used them to write his book about [[Montesquieu]]'s philosophy and an essay on Rousseau's ''[[The Social Contract]]''.{{sfn|Jay|1984|p=393}} Indeed, his first and the only book-length study published during his lifetime was ''Montesquieu, la politique et l'histoire'' ("Montesquieu: Politics and History") in 1959.{{sfnm|1a1=Jay|1y=1984|1p=393|2a1=Stolze|2y=2013|2p=8|3a1=Lewis|3y=2014}} He also lectured on Rousseau from 1950 to 1955,{{sfn|IMEC|1997|p=86}} and changed his focus to philosophy of history, also studying [[Voltaire]], [[Condorcet]], and [[Claude Adrien Helvétius|Helvétius]], which resulted in a 1955–1956 lecture on "Les problèmes de la philosophie de l'histoire".{{sfnm|1a1=IMEC|1y=1997|1p=94|2a1=Althusser|2y=2006|2p="Sommaire"}} This course along with others on [[Machiavelli]] (1962), 17th- and 18th-century [[political philosophy]] (1965–1966), [[John Locke|Locke]] (1971), and [[Hobbes]] (1971–1972) were later edited and released as a book by François Matheron in 2006.{{sfnm|1a1=IMEC|1y=1997|1p=85|2a1=Althusser|2y=2006|2p="Sommaire"}} From 1953 to 1960, Althusser basically did not publish on Marxist themes, which in turn gave him time to focus on his teaching activities and establish himself as a reputable philosopher and researcher.{{sfn|Kelly|1982|p=119}} <!-- Relevant? In 1955, for example, he published an open letter titled "The Objectivity of History" ("Sur l'objectivité de l'histoire") to [[Paul Ricœur]] in the journal ''Revue de l'enseignement philosophique''. Dedicated to the scientific bases of historical analysis, it was response to the tough criticism Ricœur gave to [[Raymond Aron]]'s ''Introduction to the Philosophy of History''.{{sfn|Montag|2013|p=38}} -->