The Absolute Authority

In this interview, Viktor Karády, who was member of the Centre de sociologie européenne in Paris for almost forty years from early 1965, recalls his personal memories of Pierre Bourdieu. His account provides a nuanced picture of the professional qualities of the “young genius”, the workshop of editing the Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales – a scholarly journal founded in 1975 by Bourdieu in which Karády became the second most published author aft er the 1980s. Th e interview contains subtle descriptions of the internal dynamics of the Centre’s life and the complex personality– sometimes with paranoid inclinations – of Pierre Bourdieu. Since Karády was editor of the Revue francaise de sociologie for more than a decade and initially also close to Raymond Aron, his narrative not only tells of the conflict-laden relationship between Bourdieu and Aron, but also gives hints of how representatives of other workshops in French sociology saw the activity of the Bourdieu school. The interview was conducted by Miklós Hadas.