Zygmunt Bauman

Poznan, Poland, 1925 - Leeds, United Kingdom, 2017
He was Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds where he lived until his death, 9 January 2017. He first left his homeland in 1939 when he and his family fled from the Nazi terror to the Soviet Union. He was then in the Polish Army and fought on the Russian front, after which he was a lecturer at the University of Warsaw for fourteen years, but a ferocious anti-Semitic campaign once again forced him into exile in 1968. He went to the University of Tel Aviv but this was to be a temporary destination and he went on to teach in the United States and Canada. In 1972 he settled in Great Britain.Throughout his long career he has been working on critical and emancipatory sociology. Notable among his published works, many of which have been published in Spanish, are Modernity and the Holocaust (Modernidad y Holocausto, Sequitur, 1997); Postmodernity and Its Discontents (La postmodernidad y sus descontentos, Akal, 2001); Liquid Modernity (Modernidad líquida, FCE, 2003); Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds (Amor líquido: acerca de la fragilidad de los vínculos humanos,FCE, 2005); Europe: An Unfinished Adventure (Europa, una aventura inacabada, Losada, 2006); Postmodern Ethics (Ética posmoderna, Siglo XXI, 2006); Arxipèlag d’excepcions (Archipelago of Exceptions, Breus CCCB, 2007); Liquid Times, Living in an Age of Uncertainty (Tiempos líquidos, Tusquets, 2007); Consuming Life (Vida de consumo, FCE, 2007); Freedom (Libertad, Losada, 2008); and Liquid Fear (Miedo liquid, Paidós, 2010). He published This is Not a Diary (Esto no es un diario, Paidós, 2012) and, in January 2013, Paidós also published the Spanish edition of his book On Education: Conversations with Riccardo Mazzeo. In 2010, together with Alain Touraine, he was a Prince of Asturias Awards laureate for Communications and Humanities.