This collection of articles is based on an Indo-French seminar on Pierre Bourdieu held to honour the work of this innovative social thinker who died in January 2002. It discusses the crises of imperial societies; the concept of state for Bourdieu and Foucault; Bourdieu’s theory of the symbolic; literature and politics during the German occupation; symbolic violence and masculine dominance in the Vichy regime; the notion of habitus, performance and women’s experience in everyday life; Bourdieu and anthropology; and violence in the Bombay riots. Students and teachers alike will find it a stimulating read.