The Last Resort

Abstract

In 1984, Pierre Bourdieu published The Last Resort, a commentary on Kafka's work for the catalog of an exhibition devoted to the Czech writer in Paris. The interest offered by this short text can be summed up in three aspects: first, because it constitutes an insightful reading of The Trial, a novel that stages the severity of hierarchies and social judgment; second, because the Kafkaesque motif gives Bourdieu the opportunity to synthesize some of his key ideas about the positions, dispositions, and stances that constitute social life; third, because it shows the benefit that represents, for sociology, to draw on the descriptive potential of the literary text. The purpose of this annotated translation is to make available to the Spanish-speaking public a text that is both short and complete, an admirable synthesis of Bourdieu's sociological thought.