Zygmunt Bauman was born in Poznan 19 November 1925. We celebrate the centenary of his birth by sharing an interview with Peter Beilharz by Southern People’s Weekly. Enthusiasm for Bauman’s ideas remains high in China, as elsewhere. We remember him fondly, as an ongoing friend and inspiration for Thesis Eleven. Happy Birthday, Zygmunt Bauman!
Contributors: Slawomir Czapnik and Tomasz Krawczyk, Howard Prosser, Ricardo P Regatieri and Lucas Trindade, Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen, Dikshit Sarma Bhagabati, Bernardo Paci, Sonny Osman, Henrique Augusto Alexandre, Janine Gertz, Theresa Petray, Miriam Jorgensen, Alison Vivian and Coralie Achterberg, Raymond Grenfell and Fausto Butta, Mathijs van de Sande and Gaard Kets, Franz-Josef Deiters, David Roberts, and Edmund Mendelssohn
by Eric Ferris
Previously honoring Agnes Heller and George Markus, the conference was part of an ongoing, larger Chinese federal research project on aesthetics which, in part, is a canopy for critical theory and has to date resulted in serious scholarship on Eastern European Marxist thinkers by Chinese intellectuals. Co-sponsored by Thesis Eleven, The Research Center for Marxist Theory of Literature in the College of Literature and Journalism at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, and the Marxist Aesthetics Committee of the Chinese Association of Aesthetics, the conference not only reflected Bauman’s global influence, it was also an example of how his influence continues to grow.
Zygmunt Bauman, Theory and Society (Polity, 2024).
Edited by Tom Campbell, Dariusz Brzezinski, Mark Davis and Jack Palmer, with translations by Katarzyna Bartoszynska
Reviewed by Peter Beilharz
The Photographs of Zygmunt Bauman, edited by Peter Beilharz and Janet Wolff (Manchester University Press, 2023)
Reviewed by Eric Ferris
Zygmunt Bauman, My Life in Fragments, edited by Izabela Wagner (Polity, 2023);
Zygmunt Bauman, History and Politics, edited by Mark Davis, Jack Palmer, Dariusz Brzezinski and Tom Campbell (Polity 2023).
Reviewed by Peter Beilharz
Review Essay: The Posthumous Bauman
By Matt Dawson
2023 saw six new books by, and about Zygmunt Bauman published. 6 years after his death, these texts were part of an emerging body of literature we may call The Posthumous Bauman. I explore the key lessons this literature has offered and suggest there are four key themes: our increased knowledge of Bauman’s life and its link, or not, to his sociology; the role of the hinterland for the sociologist; the increased interest in Bauman’s lifelong sociological project before he came to Leeds; and the differing receptions of Bauman’s work.
by María Pía Lara
This reflection is tied up with the memoir written by my dear friend Peter Beilharz (2020), Intimacy in Postmodern Times: A Friendship with Zygmunt Bauman. Indeed, Peter’s process of understanding himself not only allows us to learn about him as a person and as an intellectual, but it also explores some important dimensions of his sociological thinking in connection with his friend.
Jack Palmer, Zygmunt Bauman and the West: a sociology of intellectual exile (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023)
Reviewed by Eric Ferris
This speech was delivered by Anna Sfard at the book launch of The Photographs of Zygmunt Bauman, hosted by Portico Library, 15 July 2023. The Photographs of Zygmunt Bauman was edited by Peter Beilharz and Janet Wolff and published by Manchester University Press.
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