Zygmunt Bauman’s sociology has known very divers receptions, depending on the intellectual contexts and periods of writing. Through a study of the prolific work of the author, this article aims at describing the different steps of this path, in order to grasp the process leading to such disparities. This analysis will try to explain the feeble reception of the thinker within the French intellectual sphere, as well as the several polemics engendered by his work in the English-speaking academic world. Lastly, (...) this article would like to partially define the form and status of what the author has called ‘liquid sociology’ in recent years. (shrink)

In this article, Zygmunt Bauman's deep-seated utopian sensibilities are dissected and discussed. It is shown how Bauman already early on in his career took a keen interest in the topic of utopia and how he throughout the years has continued to pursue the idea of utopia - its perversions and possibilities. The article suggests that Bauman is basically an ‘ambivalent utopian’ - that he, on the one hand, regards utopianism as an important and ineradicable constant in the human-being-in-the-world, something creating (...) the hopeful possibility for a better world and a brighter future, but also that he, on the other hand, is concerned with attempts to turn utopia into a ‘project’ or a ‘concrete reality’. Bauman's utopian ambivalence owes perhaps as much to the inherently two-sided nature of utopian ideas as to his own personal experiences throughout his life in the 20th century. (shrink)

The article has two aims: firstly, it provides a holistic account of Zygmunt Bauman’s oeuvre, and secondly, it presents an extensive up-to-date and multilingual bibliography of his published writings. The authors discuss Bauman’s prolificacy, as well as the stylistic, formal and substantive heterogeneity of his work. Taking this into account, they reflect on the curious reception of his oeuvre in the wider disciplinary field of sociology. The bibliography attached to the paper provides the most complete account of Bauman’s writings. Building (...) on previous bibliographies, and drawing on archival research in the Janina and Zygmunt Bauman Papers at the University of Leeds, the bibliography spans 63 years from his first publication to his most recent. Many of these papers – both in English and Polish – are presented for the first time in the list of his works. (shrink)