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Pierre Bourdieu in Context Craig Calhoun Placing Pierre Bourdieu has proved difficult for many readers. Anthropologist, sociologist, or philosopher? Action theorist or structuralist? Materialist or culturalist? Determinist or committed to political struggle? Seeking throughout his life to overcome problematic oppositions, Bourdieu also embodied them. Difficult to read, he reached a broad audience far beyond academic walls. Intensely competitive and even combative, he inspired personal loyalty and argued for solidarity. A critic of the higher education system, he was among its most successful products. An opponent of the grands mandarins who dominated French intellectual life, he became one of them. A very private man as well as a critic of the media, he became a remarkably prominent celebrity. The fame came especially in the last years of his life, and to some extent has distorted reception of his career and oeuvre as a whole. In the 1990s, Bourdieu became France’s most famous campaigner against the imposition of a neoliberal model of globalization. Pierre Carles’ documentary movie on his political work, Sociology Is a Martial Art, was a surprise commercial success in 2000-2001—portraying Bourdieu as a sort of intellectual equivalent of the farmer and anti-fast food activist José Bové. Theater groups staged performances based on his ethnographic exploration of social suffering, La misère du monde. Women approached him in the street to tell him how La domination masculine had inspired them. When he died on January 23rd, 2002, Le Monde delayed publication by several hours so the front page could carry the news. It was the lead story on TV news in France (and other European countries) and ran with expressions of grief and loss from France’s president, prime minister, trade union leaders, and a host of other dignitaries and scholars. The entry into politics that made Bourdieu so prominent a celebrity also aroused criticisms, suspicions, and resentments among his