What was Bauman like Before Liquidity?

To get to know Zygmunt Bauman's thought, it is not enough to limit oneself to liquidity, with all its connections and conjugations: it is necessary to go back to his work in the 1990s, when—still involved with the problem of postmodernity—he was sensing the advance of widespread uncertainty (Alone Again, 1994) and fragmentation of social relations (Life in Fragments, 1995), which followed the better-known Postmodern Ethics (1993). During this period of major research commitment, which precedes the turn of the third millennium with the publication of his seminal text, Liquid Modernity (2000), Bauman has just left the chair of Sociology at the University of Leeds and can finally devote himself full-time to his studies. From this point on, he publishes no less than sixty volumes and an endless series of speeches, articles, interviews, and lectures, demonstrating how true what he goes on to suggest to his correspondents and friends: leave teaching as soon as possible and devote himself to creative work. Work at the university has become too bureaucratic, and administrative commitments, in addition to exams, leave insufficient time for research, reflection, and writing. 1990 is the year in which he rids himself of this burden, which has become unbearable, not least because of the inevitable disagreements in academia.