Call him crazy, but Bourdieu once supported a clown to be a candidate for the presidency of France. He just couldn't stand Mitterand, who represented (to him) how politics had become self-interested and professionalized. The people just didn't seem to matter anymore. So, Bourdieu supported a French clown named Coluche. Mitterand won, anyway. (Source.)

Bourdieu once published a poem by Harold Pinter about the Gulf War in his fancy learned journal, Liber. (Source.)

By the time he passed away, he was referred to by Le Monde (the French New York Times) as ''the intellectual reference'' for major events in France. (Source.)

You know he hated McDonald's, so it was a real diss when Bourdieu accused TV talk show hosts of serving up ''cultural fast food." (Source.)

Bourdieu wasn't so keen on that rock star of a philosopher named Bernard Henri-Lévy (known as "BHL"). He once admitted that BHL was his "favourite whipping boy" and that "no sociologist worthy of his name talks about Bernard Henri-Lévy." (Source.)