To Zygmunt, to whom I owe everything.
To Aleksandra, Lydia, Anna,
Irena, Maurice and Mark:
I am so grateful that life made our paths cross.
THOMAS LEONCINI
Passages from the Italian translated by Lucinda Byatt
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First published in Italian as Nati liquidi. Trasformazioni nel terzo millennio © Sperling & Kupfer Editori S.p.A, 2017
This English edition © Polity Press, 2019
The right of Lucinda Byatt to be identified as translator of the Italian passages in this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3070-0
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bauman, Zygmunt, 1925-2017, author. | Leoncini, Thomas, 1985- author.
Title: Born liquid : transformations in the third millennium / Zygmunt Bauman, Thomas Leoncini.
Other titles: Nati liquidi. English
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018012971 (print) | LCCN 2018029270 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509530700 (Epub) | ISBN 9781509530670 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509530687 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Postmodernism--Social aspects. | Social change--Philosophy. | Civilization, Modern--21st century. | Social history--21st century.
Classification: LCC HM449 (ebook) | LCC HM449 .B39513 2018 (print) | DDC 909.83--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018012971
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On 21 February 2017, an international seminar held at the Kolegium Artes Liberales of the University of Warsaw, Poland, was held to celebrate Zygmunt Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity. I was asked to talk about my husband’s last works and I began by describing the joint project with a young man to write about the younger generations, those who are Born Liquid. I told the audience about how they corresponded and how the young man was committed to finishing the book after Zygmunt’s departure into ‘liquid eternity’. The lecture hall was packed to overflowing, and an even wider audience was listening online, linked from various parts of the world. There was enormous interest. I believe there could not be a better augury for the long voyage undertaken by this little book.
ALEKSANDRA KANIA BAUMAN
With the demise of my individual body, bodily existence will not really end. It will continue, much as it started before the appearance of my body and before the beginning of my own thinking, before my ‘entering the world’. It will continue in the form of the bodily presence of other people.
ZYGMUNT BAUMAN, Mortality, Immortality and other Life Strategies*