Tra esperienza e pensiero. Una conversazione con Paolo Jedlowski

Abstract

The interview traces the main stages of the (academic) biography of the sociologist Paolo Jedlowski from his choice to study philosophy in the 1970s, the switch to sociology at the end of the same decade to his further career in this discipline at the University of Calabria. The focus is on the interplay between his sociological thought, how it has been developed over time, and his intellectual trajectory within the sociological field, in order to highlight how the main concepts of his theories and works emerged from his experiences and network of interlocutions within and outside the Academia. Departing from this premise, the conversation took the form of a generational confrontation between Paolo Jedlowski and the interviewer. Thus, looking especially at the structural and institutional transformations which affected the Italian University system in the last two decades, the interview had a double objective: first, to understand how the engagement of Paolo Jedlowski with (Ph.D.) students and younger sociologists, not least about their future, affected his intellectual experiences as both ‘teacher’ and social thinker; and second, to create a narrative space where even the younger generations of sociologists might find themselves.