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Zygmunt Bauman - To Build Anew

Thesis Eleven Centre for Critical Theory at La Trobe University, Australia, p.beilharz{at}latrobe.edu.au

This essay is a gift for Zygmunt Bauman on his 80th birthday. Its purpose is to celebrate his achievement by scanning it, in three sections. First, I indicate something of my own encounter with Bauman, my road to Leeds. Second, I seek, once again, to characterize his project and its key themes. Third, I indicate some of the features of what I take to be his legacy. Bauman’s sociology appeals because it combines East European Critical Theory with (if you like) a postmodern, or contemporary sociology of everyday life. His work mediates the themes of classical and modern sociology with present-day life and its uncertainties. Bauman’s is a critique of modernity as excess, but it always retains the sense that we could, after all, do other.

Key Words: Bauman • critical theory • excess • modernity • Weberian Marxism

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