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The article has two aims: firstly, it provides a holistic account of Zygmunt Bauman’s oeuvre, and secondly, it presents an extensive up-to-date and multilingual bibliography of his published writings. The authors discuss Bauman’s prolificacy, as well as the stylistic, formal and substantive heterogeneity of his work. Taking this into account, they reflect on the curious reception of his oeuvre in the wider disciplinary field of sociology. The bibliography attached to the paper provides the most complete account of Bauman’s writings. Building on previous bibliographies, and drawing on archival research in the Janina and Zygmunt Bauman Papers at the University of Leeds, the bibliography spans 63 years from his first publication to his most recent. Many of these papers – both in English and Polish – are presented for the first time in the list of his works.

This article elucidates some connections and divergences between S.N. Eisenstadt’s work on multiple modernities and critical reflections on ‘African modernity’ presented by Africanist scholars. It argues that there is more cross-over between these discussions than is commonly thought when both are seen as parallel responses to the shortcomings of post-war modernization theory. Eisenstadt’s work can inform debates in African Studies concerning the effective power of tradition in postcolonial African societies, and on African interpretations of the ‘cultural programme’ of modernity. The article also discusses some weaknesses in Eisenstadt’s theorizing which arise from an extension of the multiple modernities framework to African societies, namely, an underappreciation of the various modalities of colonial imperialism and racialization, as well as the institutional constraints placed on postcolonial societal elites. It claims that these can be offset via a dialogue with the work of scholars in African Studies. Moreover, it is argued that the paradigm of multiple modernities can more satisfactorily shed light on African trajectories of modernity via the retrieval of tenets of Eisenstadt’s ‘heterodox’ modernization theory and work on post-traditionality, outlined in the 1960s and the 1970s, which include specific reflections on African societies.

In the immediate aftermath of his death, a number of excellent articles were written that each provide a different door into the vast room of Bauman’s sociology. In the past year or so, there have also been a number of books that have set about providing a more ‘critical analysis’ of his work whilst also considering how sociology might look anew and move creatively ‘beyond Bauman’ (Blackshaw 2016; Jacobsen ed. 2016; Rattansi 2017). In so doing, these welcome contributions clearly take Bauman’s sociological imagination very seriously and provide useful reference points for both scholars and students seeking a more robust examination of Bauman’s ideas. Each contribution deserves to be read and studied as they provide new and considered insights into Bauman’s legacy for the social sciences and humanities. Throughout the article that follows, we make our own contribution to the curious reader’s deliberations on these debates by shining a light on those aspects of Bauman’s work that may have become somewhat hidden and possibly overlooked in what we see as a growing tendency to focus primarily upon his later writings on ‘liquid modernity’. We argue that in order to grasp fully the meaning of Bauman’s writing in the more popular post-2000 phase, it is vital that one understands these earlier foundations of his thought. In this way, we hope that we may go some way to rebalancing the concerns of some contemporary critics.

Les besoins de l'industrie en traduction technique sont presentes a partir de l'exemple francais de la Societe Framatome. La place accordee dans cette societe aux traducteurs, essentiellement anglophones, est analysee ainsi que le role qu'ils jouent dans les transferts de technologie