Dear colleagues,
We would like to invite you to take part in the international conference “Contours of Contemporary Critical Theory: The Liquid Modernity of Zygmunt Bauman,” organized by the European Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania) and dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Polish and British sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic Zygmunt Bauman.
Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017) was one of the most original European thinkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Contemporary social theory cannot be imagined without the concepts and metaphors generated by Bauman. Over his creative life (covering both his Polish and British periods), he wrote more than 60 books on a wide range of interdisciplinary topics, such as freedom and justice, socialism and utopia, labor and inequality, culture and nature, ethics and the art of living, autonomy and democracy, modernity and the Holocaust, postmodern consumerism, individualization, globalization, liquid modernity, and more.
Bauman turned to the theory of liquid modernity in the last decades of his life. He published many books that developed this theory, including Liquid Modernity (2000), Liquid Love (2003), Liquid Life (2005), Liquid Fear (2006), Liquid Times (2006), Liquid Evil: Living with TINA (2016, coauthored with Leonidas Donskis), and others. Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity can be considered as a relevant version of critical social theory and a way of grasping actual sociocultural changes in the context of uncertainty, instability and ambivalence of social institutions.
Bauman’s work and intellectual legacy, as well as his biography, are of particular importance for Eastern Europe in general and Belarus in particular. Bauman experienced two totalitarian regimes, political persecution, and exile. For a short time, he lived in the Belarusian town of Molodechno. Bauman built his professional career at the University of Leeds, where he developed his theories of the postmodern condition and liquid modernity, which brought him worldwide recognition and fame.
Fours Readings 2024 initiated a comprehensive interdisciplinary discussion of current issues in contemporary critical theory. While retaining the conceptual framework of last year’s conference, the Fours Readings 2025 broaden the scope of these issues by addressing the intellectual legacy of Zygmunt Bauman. On the one hand, this is a tribute to the memory of the outstanding British sociologist in the year of his 100th anniversary, and on the other hand, it is an opportunity to rethink his concept of liquid modernity in the context of current global processes: dedemocratization, the strengthening of authoritarian regimes through consolidation and solidarity,
as well as the growing socio-political fragmentation in democratic countries.
Proposed topics for the discussion:
- Critical social theory: history and modern concepts;
- Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity: relevance, reception, and critique;
- Denaturalization of the concept of society: searching for new metaphors in social theory;
- Ethics, solidarity, and care in a consumer society;
- The crisis of the nation-state and the discourse of globalization;
- The new politics of identity in the context of cosmopolitanization;
- Retrotopia, identity crisis, and the politics of memory;
- (Post-)Marxism, critique of capitalism, and socialism as an active utopia;
- Feminist and gender theory;
- Critical media and technology theory;
- Postcolonial studies: Eurocentric and regional discourses in conflict and interaction;
- The crisis of publicity, the normative ideal of autonomy, and democracy today;
- Challenges to education in the context of a dynamically changing society.
Working languages: Belarusian, Russian, English.
Forms of Participation: onsite in EHU and online.
Deadline for Submitting Applications: April 15, 2025, via the online application form.
Conference time and address: The conference will take place on June 13th – 14th, 2025.
EHU Campus, 17 Savičiaus Str., 01127, Vilnius, Lithuania. E-mail: [email protected]
Following the conference, the papers will be published in the journal Topos (EHU, Vilnius, Lithuania) or in a special thematic collection of articles. Texts must be submitted by September 15, 2025.