Center for Cultural Sociology

Sonja van Wichelen
Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam

Sonja van Wichelen is a CCS Postdoctoral Fellow for the academic years 2007-2009. She is also affiliated as a Research Fellow at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, where she obtained her PhD in Political Science. Her dissertation – entitled Embodied Contestations: Muslim Politics and Democratization in Indonesia through the Prism of Gender – focused on Islam and gender debates in times of political transition. Her current research-project centers on “transnational adoption” and examines adoption practices in the United States and the Netherlands. Together with Marc de Leeuw she is also preparing a manuscript provisionally entitled Transformations of Dutchness, which explores changing discourses of liberalism and tolerance in contemporary Dutch society.

Andrea Cossu
Trento University

Andrea Cossu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento (Italy). His research focuses mainly on collective memory and national identity, and he is currently writing a manuscript about commemoration, truth claims and historical revisionism in contemporary Italy. Other projects include an article on reputations and the culture of self-criticism in the Italian Communist Party, and an essay on the cultural analysis of historical events. (MA cum laude, Communication Sciences, University of Bologna, 2002; PhD, Sociology, University of Trento, 2007). (Post-Doctoral Fellow, Fall 2008- Fall 2009)

Jonathan Roberge
University of Ottawa

Jonathan Roberge is a CCS Postdoctoral Fellow for the academic year 2008-2009, with a grant awarded by the FQRSC Fund. His first book, Paul Ricoeur, la culture et les sciences humaines was published in the spring of 2008. Jonathan is currently involved in a number of research projects including: the co-edition of a forthcoming book entitled Après la fin de la société?; an article concerning Cultural Pragmatics; and another article on Critical Hermeneutics. He is also interested in the cultural and performative aspects of new social movements. (Ph.D., Sociology, Université de Montréal, M.A. and B.A., Political Science, Université Laval, Canada)

Natasha Kirsten Kraus
Independent Researcher

Natasha Kirsten Kraus is a visiting independent scholar for the 2008-09 academic year. Her book, “A New Type of Womanhood”: Social Movement and Discursive Politics in Antebellum America has recently been published with Duke University Press. Kirsten is currently engaged in a number of projects including: a book of essays on film, cultural studies, and new critical theories (queer theory, poststructuralist feminist theory, critical race theory, and critical disability theory); an article on Terri Schiavo, Terri Schiavo’s Body, and the Nation; and archival research for a new book Sexuality and the Victorian Governess: The Cultural Shaping of England’s Middle Class. (Ph.D., Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, 1999;M.A., Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, 1991)(Visiting Fellow, Fall 2008 – Fall 2009)

Volker Heins
Frankfurt University

Volker Heins is a senior fellow at the Institute for Social Research, Frankfurt University. He has taught and researched at various places on different continents, including the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University and Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He is also a member of the Centre for Human Rights & Legal Pluralism at McGill University, Montreal, where until recently he has been teaching political theory as a visiting professor. His work addresses developments in critical social theory, the role of citizen movements in international affairs, the dilemmas of human rights policies, and political ideologies in contemporary societies. Currently he is working on a book on the politics of critical theory. (Visiting Fellow, Spring 2009)

Marc de Leeuw
Independent Researcher

Marc De Leeuw is affiliated with the CCS as an independent researcher for the academic year 2008-2009. He is also a researcher with the University for Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands. His Ph.D. examines the dialectic of fallibility and capability within the philosophical anthropology of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur with an emphasis on questions of narrative, self, memory and ethics. Currently, he is also working on a manuscript, together with Sonja van Wichelen, on the crisis of liberalism and tolerance within the contemporary Dutch public sphere. His main interests concern theories of (individual and collective) identity, culture, and ethics within the fields of continental philosophy, cultural sociology, comparative literature, gender studies and political history.

Ivana Spasic
Belgrade University

Ivana Spasic is Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Belgrade, Serbia, teaching courses in sociological theory, sociology of everyday life and theories of culture. She is the author of two books on interpretative sociologies, coauthor of a study of everyday perceptions of politics in contemporary Serbia, and coeditor of a volume on Serbian transition. She is currently involved in projects examining the place of culture in processes of social transformation in the postsocialist southeast Europe. (Ph.D., Sociology, University of Belgrade, 2003; M.A., Sociology, University of Belgrade, 1994). (Fulbright Fellow, Spring 2009)

Esteve Ollé Sanz
Independent Researcher

Esteve Ollé is interested in exploring the relation between culture, power and instrumental reason through the analysis of certain television productions. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Catalonia, with a focus on the cultural and technological transformations of
contemporary public bureaucracies, and a M.Phil. in Political Science from the LSE, based on a three-year research project on the political and emotional elements of global event episodes. In 2008 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT, where he learned
about the changing structure of television industry and the contemporary trends of television fiction. (Post-Doctoral Fellow, January – December, 2009)

Sarah Moore
University of Kent

Sarah Moore is Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her research interests are eclectic, reflecting an academic trajectory that started in the Arts and has more recently involved a move into Criminology. A core theme in her research is the cultural construction of threats to our health and personal safety: previous projects have explored the ‘feminisation’ of breast cancer, the relationship between fear of crime and the built environment, and the media representation of drink-spiking. Her current work identifies the ‘cautionary tale’ as a new model for understanding media representation. She is the author of Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion, and Public Awareness (2008). (Visiting Fellow, April 2009)

Pavel Barša
Charles University, Prague

Pavel Barša is professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University and a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. He has written on nationalism and ethnocultural justice in Central Europe. His current research focuses on the correlation between national identities and immigration policies. He is also interested in the politics of memory in post-communist societies.(Fulbright Scholar, Spring and Fall 2008)