ABSTRACT
Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman is widely recognised as one of the great social thinkers of the 20th and early 21st century. His work is continuously referenced, discussed, celebrated and used within many disciplinary contexts. A key and recurring concern throughout Bauman’s writings since the early years was the topic of utopia as an important social force connecting the present to the future. To Bauman, even though utopia during the 20th century had been used and abused for many horrendous and inhuman purposes, to him it remained a continuous and critical source of hope and a harbinger of the not-yet waiting ahead. Towards the end of his life, he turned towards nostalgia when writing critically about the rise of ‘retrotopia’ – the backward-looking utopia – in contemporary liquid-modern society. This chapter traces the roots of Bauman’s utopianism and links it with his later interest in retrotopia and nostalgia.
