Taking Soundings is delighted to host Zygmunt Bauman on Wednesday 30th November 2016. (Venue details below.) The title of Prof Bauman’s talk is

“Some comments on current social and political tendencies”

Zygmunt Bauman, launching Taking Soundings in Leeds on 16th January 2007. (Photo: Guy Farrar.)

“Some comments on current social and political tendencies”

Zygmunt Bauman will be offering his answer to these two questions:

1. What do Brexit and Trump tell us about the state of society today?
2. What does the moral panic about the “influx of immigrants” tel us about society today?

You can get a preview of his analysis in this interview (released on 14.11.16) with Social Europe.

Zygmunt Bauman, Emeritus Professor at the University of Leeds, is one of the world’s leading sociologists. He is the author of more than 70 books, translated into many languages. (Wiki’s version of Bauman’s biography, ideas and Bibliography is here.)

He is one of the most persuasive of commentators on the effects of what he has called ‘liquid modernity’, pointing to its rampant inequality and the transition it makes from a welfare state to a security state.

Bauman’s analysis, we suggest, should inform the new progressive, left-alliance politics that is emerging in response to the authoritarian populist movements of the political right.

After his lecture, Max Farrar, who was a student of Zygmunt Bauman’s, will offer an appreciation of his work.

Date: Wednesday 30th November 2016

Time: 6 – 8 pm

Venue: Lecture Theatre C444, on the fourth floor of The Rose Bowl, Leeds Beckett University, Portland Crescent, Leeds LS1 3HB

Free event: pay as you can afford.