Zygmunt Bauman – Prophet of Postmodernity

<p>Preface x</p>
<p>Part I Setting the Agenda</p>
<p>1 Living Without a Guidebook 3</p>
<p>Introduction 3</p>
<p>Critical perspectives 3</p>
<p>Sociology plus 5</p>
<p>What is modernity? 6</p>
<p>What is postmodernity? 9</p>
<p>Why Bauman is worth reading 14</p>
<p>The myth of the cage–dwellers 16</p>
<p>The rest of this book 18</p>
<p>2 No Easy Choices 20</p>
<p>Culture, choice and sociology 20</p>
<p>Bauman s vision 23</p>
<p>Bauman s career and intellectual influences: a brief overview 27</p>
<p>3 Who is Zygmunt Bauman? 33</p>
<p>Faith, hope and charity 33</p>
<p>The roots of wisdom 34</p>
<p>Bauman s agenda 35</p>
<p>A brief biography 38</p>
<p>Transitions 41</p>
<p>Puzzles 43</p>
<p>Anti–Semitism and Bauman 43</p>
<p>Neither insider nor outsider 44</p>
<p>Marx and the art of motorcycle maintenance 45</p>
<p>4 The Power of the Past 48</p>
<p>Discovering postmodernity 48</p>
<p>From priest to prophet 50</p>
<p>Out of Poland 52</p>
<p>A sociology for strangers 56</p>
<p>Part II The Road to Postmodernity</p>
<p>5 The Road to the West 61</p>
<p>Keeping on the road 61</p>
<p>An unexpected discovery 62</p>
<p>Intellectuals and innovation 64</p>
<p>Bauman, Galbraith and Mill 66</p>
<p>Modern times, modern Marxism 67</p>
<p>Between Class and Elite 69</p>
<p>Polish peasants and politics 71</p>
<p>Conclusion 75</p>
<p>6 The Road to Utopia 77</p>
<p>Mechanisms of social change 77</p>
<p>Culture as Praxis 77</p>
<p>Towards a Critical Sociology 80</p>
<p>Socialism: the active utopia 85</p>
<p>Hermeneutics and Social Science 89</p>
<p>Conclusion 94</p>
<p>7 The Road to the Berlin Wall 98</p>
<p>Switching routes 98</p>
<p>Solidarity 99</p>
<p>Memories of Class 101</p>
<p>Freedom 105</p>
<p>After communism 109</p>
<p>Conclusion 110</p>
<p>8 The Trilogy 113</p>
<p>Three narratives 113</p>
<p>Legislators and Interpreters 114</p>
<p>Cruelty, dehumanization and estrangement 120</p>
<p>Modernity and the Holocaust 122</p>
<p>Modernity and Ambivalence 130</p>
<p>Conclusion 134</p>
<p>9 Bauman s Vision of Modernity and Postmodernity 136</p>
<p>Elaborating the vision 136</p>
<p>Tending the garden 136</p>
<p>Discipline and sacrifice 138</p>
<p>The costs of modernity 142</p>
<p>Contradictions of modernity 143</p>
<p>The postmodern perspective 147</p>
<p>The postmodern habitat 150</p>
<p>The broader context 152</p>
<p>Three aspects of postmodernity 153</p>
<p>Postmodernization 155</p>
<p>Globalization 156</p>
<p>Seduction and repression 156</p>
<p>Cognitive, aesthetic and moral space 158</p>
<p>The stranger 161</p>
<p>I and the Other 163</p>
<p>The role of the sociologist 165</p>
<p>Part III Dialogue</p>
<p>10 Between Critical Theory and Poststructuralism 169</p>
<p>The ambivalence of criticism 169</p>
<p>The journey from modernity to postmodernity 170</p>
<p>Adorno and Habermas 171</p>
<p>Foucault and Lyotard 178</p>
<p>Enlightenment values 184</p>
<p>11 A Correspondence between Zygmunt Bauman and Dennis Smith 188</p>
<p>First letter 188</p>
<p>Second letter 191</p>
<p>Third letter 198</p>
<p>Fourth letter 203</p>
<p>Fifth letter 213</p>
<p>Notes 221</p>
<p>Bibliography 231</p>
<p>Index 239</p>