CONVERSATIONS WITH PIERRE BOURDIEU

Havens Center, University of Wisconsin,  April, 2008

These imaginary conversations with Pierre Bourdieu began as notes for Loïc Wacquant’s boot camp course on the enormous scholarly and political corpus of Bourdieu, a course I took in 2005.  Listening to Wacquant’s conversation with Bourdieu, I became curious about other conversations, specifically the repressed ones between Bourdieu and Marxism, conversations concerning conceptions of society and its social transformation as well as the meaning of science and the place of intellectuals. I was especially  interested in how Pierre Bourdieu's social theory fitted with his practice as a public sociologist, albeit a particular type of public sociologist, and what this might say about the forms, limits and possibilities of public sociology. I'm very grateful first, to the Havens Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison for inviting me to present these gestating conversations in public, and, second, to students and faculty for subjecting them to such animated and critical interrogation.  The conversations continue.  

1. The Political Economy of Sociology: Marx Meets Bourdieu

2. Durable Domination: Gramsci Meets Bourdieu

3. Is there a Working Class? Burawoy Meets Bourdieu

4. Colonialism and Revolution: Fanon Meets Bourdieu

5. Antinomies of Feminism: Beauvoir Meets Bourdieu

6. Intellectuals and their Publics: Bourdieu Inherits Mills