"The Mission Of Politics ... Is To Put Into Words The Experience That Has Eluded A Constructed Reality": Interview With Luc Boltanski

Luc Boltanski visited Russia in September, 2019, to support the publication of the Russian translation of his book Mysteries and Conspiracies: Detective Stories, Spy Novels and the Making of Modern Societies. It was his second visit to Russia, where he delivered three lectures. The first lecture was dedicated to Mysteries and Conspiracies. The second lecture was dedicated to his last book Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities, which he wrote with Arnaud Esquerre. The third lecture focused on the relationship between the critical sociology of the Pierre Bourdieu school, and the pragmatic sociology of critical capacity promoted by Luc Boltanski together with his long-time collaborator, Laurent Thevenot, within their Group of Political and Moral Sociology. In this review of the two different approaches, he revisited the theme of his 2009 book On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation which proclaimed the then-new theoretical synthesis. Mysteries and Conspiracies, published three years later, became the first demonstration of the practical implementation of this new model. On September 14, 2019, Luc Boltanski had an extensive talk with Oleg Kharkhordin wherein he clarified some issues of these lectures. The first part of this interview which was devoted to Mysteries and Conspiracies was published by the Russian on-line edition of gorky media. Here, we publish the second part of this long interview covering the late writings of the famous French sociologist, the issues explored by his book On Critique, and the beginnings of his academic career when he was an active participant of the Pierre Bourdieu school.