Description
Book Synopsis* This is an engaging new book from one of the most influential and widely read sociologists in the world today. * Bauman, in conversation with Riccardo Mazzeo, reflects on nature and role of education and on the predicament of young people in our contemporary, liquid-modern world.
Trade Review"Bauman's knack for placing things in context and accounting for that uneasy feeling you get from this or that current development makes [On Education] stimulating."
Inside Higher Ed "When graduates can't find jobs, the bargain of commercialised education – take out enormous student loans that will be repaid by your supposedly high salary later on – breaks down. So worries the sociologist Bauman, in a perky and colourful written interview with the Italian publisher Mazzeo. Even so, Bauman remains hopeful about the 'openness' of mind ideally encouraged by schooling – indeed, as he points out sharply, it is not 'practical' otherwise."
Steven Poole, The GuardianTable of Contents1 Between mixophilia and mixophobia 1
2 José Saramago: ways of being happy 7
3 Gregory Bateson and his third level of education 11
4 From closure of mind to ‘permanent revolution’ 15
5 Oak trees and ridiculously minute acorns 24
6 Looking for a genuine ‘cultural revolution’ 27
7 Depravation is the cleverest strategy of deprivation 31
8 Minutes to destroy, years to build 40
9 The young as a tip for the consumer industry 54
10 The effort to improve mutual understanding is a prolific source of human creativity 60
11 The unemployed can always play lotto, can’t they? 65
12 Disability, abnormality, minority as a political problem 74
13 Indignation and swarm- like political groupings 80
14 Defective consumers and never- ending minefields 86
15 Richard Sennett on difference 100
16 From Lacan’s ‘capitalist’ to Bauman’s ‘consumerist’ 112
17 ?i?ek and Morin on monotheism 121
18 Proust’s petite madeleine and consumerism 126
19 On fuels, sparks and fires 130
20 On glocalization coming of age 136
