Ken Plummer: What it is to be human

Abstract

Ken Plummer’s career embraced a range of interests, and disparate interventions but is marked by a remarkable consistency, rooted in a profound humanistic understanding of the social world. This is most fully expressed in his most recent publication, Critical Humanism, but is a leitmotif throughout his writings since the early 1970s. Whilst many of his contemporaries engaged in wild flirtations with every intellectual fashion from anti-humanism to post-humanisms, and whatever lies between, over the past half-century, Plummer has remained faithful to his early moral and theoretical interests whilst being sharply alert to every nuance and subtlety of contemporary debate. He is one of the most knowledgeable of sociologists, a fluent theorist but also a passionate and committed teacher who strives to communicate as widely as possible. And throughout his life and work, over many years, you can still trace the impact of a critical moment, his engagement with gay liberation from 1970 which profoundly shaped his trajectory as a scholar and engaged intellectual. This essay focuses on a number of key themes, Sexual Stigma, Sexual Stories, Intimate Citizenship, and Critical Humanism that together offer a story of Ken Plummer’s engagement with his overarching theme: what it is to be human.