Bauman and contemporary sociology A critical analysis [Hardcover]

This is the first single-authored critical engagement with the major works of Zygmunt Bauman. Where previous books on Bauman have been exegetical, here an unwavering light is shone on key themes in the sociologist's work, exposing serious weaknesses in Bauman's interpretations of the Holocaust, Western modernity, consumerism, globalisation and the nature of sociology. The book shows how Eurocentrism, the neglect of issues of gender and a lack of awareness of the racism faced by Europe's non-white ethnic minorities seriously limit Bauman's analyses of Western societies. At the same time, it points to Bauman's repeated insistence on the need for sociologists to take a moral stance in favour of the world's poor and downtrodden as being his most valuable legacy. The book will be of great interest to sociologists. Its readability will be valued by undergraduates and postgraduates and it will attract a readership well beyond the discipline.
Introduction

Part I: The dark side of modernity

The question of modernity

Modernity and the Enlightenment

Bauman on the Enlightenment and modernity

The Holocaust's modernity

The ambivalences of modernity: a preliminary interrogation of Bauman's Eurocentric, white, male gaze

Part II: Living with postmodernity

Modernism and postmodernism

Legislators and Interpreters: extending the critique of Bauman's first exposition of postmodernity and postmodernism

Sociology and postmodernity

Aspects of Bauman's sociology of postmodernity: a critical commentary

Postmodern ethics: Bauman's Levinasian turn

Part III: Floating, slipping, sliding, drowning, boiling and freezing: the perils of liquid life

Why had Bauman become a postmodernist?

The whys and wherefores of the demise of postmodernism

'Liquid' modernity vs 'reflexive' modernity: Bauman's problem of agency, again

'Metaphoricity' in Bauman's sociology

On the liquid metlc