Zygmunt Bauman and the West: Exile, Culture, Dialogue

The principal aim of the proposed project is to understand the role of the idea of the West in the sociology of Zygmunt Bauman. This project will be the first study of Bauman to adopt this focus. The project will constitute a significant contribution to scholarship on one of the most important and influential European intellectuals of the late 20th and early 21st century. Beyond this, as a study of the life and work of an émigré intellectual, it will also be an important intervention in an ongoing, more extensive discussion about Eurocentrism – defined as a recurring cognitive myopia in intellectuals and ideas emanating from Europe – in social and political thought. This discussion is of great relevance to contemporary political arguments about the promises and pitfalls of globalisation and the increasing tendency towards hostile, isolationist nationalism around the world. Bauman was himself extremely engaged in these social, political and moral challenges of our times and this will necessarily be reflected in the project. I will incorporate three interconnected strands within the project, named ‘exile’, ‘culture’, and ‘dialogue’

Project aims

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Impact

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Publications and outputs

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Conferences

https://baumaninstitute.leeds.ac.uk/events/modernity-and-the-holocaust-thirty-years-on/

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Project website

https://baumaninstitute.leeds.ac.uk/research/bauman-and-the-west-exile-culture-dialogue/