The new Bauman reader

The new Bauman reader
Title The new Bauman reader PDF eBook
Author Tony Blackshaw
Publisher Manchester University Press
Total Pages 577
Release 2016-08-31
Genre Social Science
ISBN 1784998060

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Zygmunt Bauman has written more than seventy books over five decades, most taking a single subject and finding doors to open it in all directions. His work is an essential reference point in sociology, but it is time that everyone caught up with him. In this book Tony Blackshaw doesn't just tell us that Bauman is a massive star in sociology, he demonstrates why his light shines brighter than that of almost any other intellectual figure in the world today by offering his readers deep insights into the 'Bauman Effect'. The new Bauman reader is two books in one. On the one hand, it is a critical introduction to a vital and inspiring sociologist who stands against the predictable in 'majority' sociology to draw out daring and new insights from which we can all learn. On the other, it is an anthology of his work chosen with the specific aim of guiding readers, whether undergraduates, postgraduates, academics or general readers to Bauman's original way of 'thinking sociologically', which is as irresistible as the 'liquid' metaphor that guides it.

The Bauman Reader

The Bauman Reader
Title The Bauman Reader PDF eBook
Author Peter Beilharz
Publisher Blackwell Publishing
Total Pages 365
Release 2001
Genre Philosophy
ISBN 9780631214922

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The remarkably diverse writings of Zygmunt Bauman range across a large number of issues in sociology, politics, history, and cultural studies. This is the first collection of Bauman's writings that covers the entire breadth of his work, and includes a summarizing essay and commentary by editor Peter Beilharz. As a whole, this is not only a guide to Bauman's way of thinking, but a guide to making sense of our times through the major work of one of the most important figures in late-twentieth-century social thought

Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman
Title Zygmunt Bauman PDF eBook
Author Tony Blackshaw
Publisher Routledge
Total Pages 178
Release 2005-11-14
Genre Social Science
ISBN 1134255969

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This timely book provides the definitive concise introduction to the phenomenon of Zygmunt Bauman. After introducing the man, his major influences and his special way of 'thinking sociologically', author Blackshaw traces the development of Bauman's project by identifying and explaining the major shifts of emphasis in his work – the break with Marxism and the postmodern 'turn', and the subsequent refocusing on 'liquid' modernity – as well as offering a clear and accessible guide to the key conceptual hinges which move the reader on. This book, the only concise introduction to Bauman's work on the market, goes on to explain the importance of the full range of persistent themes concerning Bauman, dealing specifically with individualization, freedom, identity, community, social control, consumption and waste, building a penetrating understanding of why these issues matter for this Key Sociologist. Bauman's ideas have impacted beyond sociology into criminology, political theory, cultural studies, leisure studies and so forth, and have also now penetrated outside the walls of the academy into social policy, welfare reform, social work and politics. Making use of pedagogical features such as boxed sections, chapter summaries, an annotated bibliography and links to further reading, this well-written text assumes no prior familiarity with Bauman's work and will appeal to anyone in any of these fields wishing to get acquainted with the ideas of one of the world's most wide-ranging thinkers.

Intimacy in postmodern times

Intimacy in postmodern times
Title Intimacy in postmodern times PDF eBook
Author Peter Beilharz
Publisher Manchester University Press
Total Pages 249
Release 2020-09-01
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN 1526132176

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Zygmunt Bauman was one of the most important social theorists of recent decades. He did major work on the Holocaust, the postmodern and much else, up to fifty-eight books in English on almost as many topics. In this book, Australian sociologist Peter Beilharz, Bauman’s collaborator for thirty years, recounts the details of their relationship, simultaneously charting the changes that have occurred in academic life from the 1980s to today. Friendship was one of the bonds that made Bauman and Beilharz’s intellectual collaboration possible. Though the two were worlds apart in terms of biography and place, their work together was defined by a certain kind of intimacy. Separated by a generation, they collaborated for a generation together. This book follows their story in touching detail while puzzling over Bauman’s rich yet contested legacy.

Culture in a Liquid Modern World

Culture in a Liquid Modern World
Title Culture in a Liquid Modern World PDF eBook
Author Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages 112
Release 2013-05-08
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 0745637167

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In its original formulation, ‘culture' was intended to be an agent for change, a mission undertaken with the aim of educating ‘the people' by bringing the best of human thought and creativity to them. But in our contemporary liquid-modern world, culture has lost its missionary role and has become a means of seduction: it seeks no longer to enlighten the people but to seduce them. The function of culture today is not to satisfy existing needs but to create new ones, while simultaneously ensuring that existing needs remain permanently unfulfilled. Culture today likens itself to a giant department store where the shelves are overflowing with desirable goods that are changed on a daily basis - just long enough to stimulate desires whose gratification is perpetually postponed. In this new book, Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most brilliant and influential social thinkers of our time - retraces the peregrinations of the concept of culture and examines its fate in a world marked by the powerful new forces of globalization, migration and the intermingling of populations. He argues that Europe has a particularly important role to play in revitalizing our understanding of culture, precisely because Europe, with its great diversity of peoples, languages and histories, is the space where the Other is always one's neighbour and where each is constantly called upon to learn from everyone else.

The Individualized Society

The Individualized Society
Title The Individualized Society PDF eBook
Author Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages 348
Release 2013-04-25
Genre Social Science
ISBN 0745657036

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We are spurred into action by our troubles and fears; but all too often our action fails to address the true causes of our worries. When trying to make sense of our lives, we tend to blame our own failings and weaknesses for our discomforts and defeats. And in doing so, we make things worse rather than better. Reasonable beings that we are, how does this happen and why does it go on happening? These are the questions addressed in this new book by Zygmunt Bauman - one of the most original and perceptive social thinkers writing today. For Bauman, the task of sociology is not to censor or correct the stories we tell of our lives, but to show that there are more ways in which our life stories can be told. By bringing into view the many complex dependencies invisible from the vantage point of private experience, sociology can help us to link our individual decisions and actions to the deeper causes of our troubles and fears - to the ways we live, to the conditions under which we act, to the socially drawn limits of our imagination and ambition. Sociology can help us to understand the processes that have shaped the society in which we live today, a society in which individualization has become our fate. And sociology can also help us to see that if our individual but shared anxieties are to be effectively tackled, they need to be addressed collectively, true to their social, not individual, nature. The Individualized Society will be of great interest to students of sociology, politics and the social sciences and humanities generally. It will also appeal to a broader range of readers who are interested in the changing nature of our social and political life today.

Liquid Times

Liquid Times
Title Liquid Times PDF eBook
Author Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages 137
Release 2013-04-17
Genre Social Science
ISBN 0745639607

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The passage from ‘solid’ to ‘liquid’ modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enough time to solidify and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long-term life plans, so individuals have to find other ways to organise their lives. They have to splice together an unending series of short-term projects and episodes that don’t add up to the kind of sequence to which concepts like ‘career’ and ‘progress’ could meaningfully be applied. Such fragmented lives require individuals to be flexible and adaptable – to be constantly ready and willing to change tactics at short notice, to abandon commitments and loyalties without regret and to pursue opportunities according to their current availability. In liquid modernity the individual must act, plan actions and calculate the likely gains and losses of acting (or failing to act) under conditions of endemic uncertainty. Zygmunt Bauman’s brilliant writings on liquid modernity have altered the way we think about the contemporary world. In this short book he explores the sources of the endemic uncertainty which shapes our lives today and, in so doing, he provides the reader with a brief and accessible introduction to his highly original account, developed at greater length in his previous books, of life in our liquid modern times.