Book, Praise of Literature, O[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. An enlightening dialogue about the relationship between sociology and literature In another book in the series of dialogues by Zygmunt Bauman, the renowned Polish sociologist and the Italian editor and essayist Ricardo Mazzeo talk about the relationship between literature (and the arts in general) and sociology. Although many scholars see them as radically different vocations, Bauman and Mazzeo argue that they are linked by a common goal: to investigate and reveal the truth of the human condition. The twelve dialogues presented here seek to analyze and document the shared desires, mutual inspirations and exchange between the two types of investigation. To this end, their reflections include a series of works by renowned writers and thinkers in their fields – such as Kafka, José Saramago, Elias Cannetti, Italo Calvino, Jonathan Franzen, in literature; Descartes, Kant, Lévi-Strauss, Adorno, in the social and human sciences. In a time characterized by the permanent search for new sensations and the fetishism of consumption, literature and sociology — when they walk together, attentive to each other's discoveries, engaged in continuous dialogue — restore fundamental existential questions, placing them back on the public agenda. Originating from the same curiosity and with similar cognitive purposes, both explore the same ground: the challenging task of understanding the complex entanglement between individual and society.