New Paper - Out Now!

Ahead of a special issue of the Thesis Eleven journal - to be published next month as their February 2020 issue - today sees the 'online first' publication of a new article by Dr Mark Davis entitled, "Hermeneutics contra Fundamentalism: Zygmunt Bauman's Method for Thinking in Dark Times".

The paper can be accessed via the journal's website by clicking here.

In 2018, the Bauman Institute and the Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History (CentreCATH) - both based at the University of Leeds - initiated a transdisciplinary programme of research to assess the legacies of Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), whose prolific writings were felt to be profoundly relevant to the multiple challenges of the twenty-first century. This programme was supported by funding from the LAHRI's Sadler Seminar Series through which this body of work emerged around the Arendtian theme of 'dark times'.

The forthcoming special issue of Thesis Eleven, marking just over three years since the death of Zygmunt Bauman, brings together some of the contributions to that programme in order to revisit, elaborate, and crucially to extend his intellectual archive.

Taking Bauman’s revision of contemporary social realities as a point of departure, each of the contributors to the special issue re-examine – critically but also generously – the many questions Bauman asked, tried to answer, and imbued on the way with new and sometimes shocking insights.

As the title suggests, Mark's paper reflects upon Bauman's sociological hermeneutics as a vital method in the fight against fundamentalist thinking at a time when populism appears to be on the rise seemingly across the globe.