Julia Sonnevend is Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at The New School. A scholar of media, culture and public life, her research explores the subtle yet powerful forces—such as “event,” “charm,” and “courage”—that shape the narratives and collective experiences that define us.
She is the author of Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics, named one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024; Stories Without Borders: The Berlin Wall and the Making of a Global Iconic Event; and co-editor of Education and Social Media: Toward a Digital Future. Her work has been profiled in The New Yorker and featured in The Atlantic, Time, NPR, BBC Newshour, the Times Literary Supplement, Teen Vogue, The Times Higher Education and Bloomberg News, among others.
Her academic work appears in leading peer-reviewed journals, including New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, The International Journal of Press/Politics, Media, Culture & Society, and the American Journal of Cultural Sociology.