Introduction

In this chapter, we explore the main themes and ideas emerging from the final six books to be published during Zygmunt Bauman's lifetime: Practices of Selfhood (Bauman and Raud 2015), Of God and Man (Bauman and Obirek 2015a), On the World and Ourselves (Bauman and Obirek 2015b), Liquid Evil (Bauman and Donskis 2016), Babel (Bauman and Mauro 2016) and Strangers at Our Door (Bauman 2016).1 What is immediately striking about these lesser-known books is that five of them follow the format of a conversation. In adopting this format, Bauman is following a form of sociological practice inspired by a method of hermeneutics (Dawson 2015, 2017; Davis 2013, 2020), evident since his earliest works in both Polish and English (Bauman 1962, 1965; Brzezin´ski 2017), as part of a sustained commitment to open and inclusive dialogue as the best solution to society's most urgent problems.

Throughout his long vocation as a sociologist, Bauman chased new ways of unmasking various forms of fundamentalist thinking in order to open up spaces for true dialogue between people who do not begin from a position of agreement. Bauman's thoughts in these later books are not always “new.” Presented in a more accessible style, they are written to engage an educated and curious audience “out there” in civil society, rather than “in here” amongst the Academy. Yet for the rich variety of different topics covered in these books, they remain firmly rooted in his best-known academic insights. First, that today the enduring social ills of rampant individualism and growing social division must be confronted head-on to save democracy and its principle of collective provision against individual misfortune. And second, that the best remedy against these ills remains the pursuit of “true dialogue” by embracing the difficult art of conversation. After all, why privilege the “new” when both the problem and its solution may require repetition rather than novelty? (Tester 2018).

In attempting to understand the richness and complexity of Bauman's writing across more than six decades, it is important to grasp both the breadth of that material and the methodological core that provides it with its sense of coherence.