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Dmitry Kurakin is a Professor and a Lead Research Fellow at the National Research University ‘Higher School of Economics’ (HSE University). He founded and directed the Moscow Centre for Cultural Sociology. He is a social theorist and a cultural sociologist. His primary interests include theories of the sacred, the Durkheimian tradition, the emotional dimension of culture, culture and cognition, and temporality. Devoted to theory-driven research, he contributes to these areas through extensive empirical studies in a broad range of fields, such as: the sociology of inequality, education, and choice; the sociology of perception, with special regard to the mechanisms of emotional attraction/repulsion within the genre of mystery; the sociology of the body and its ritual-like alterations, and other issues. He has published in such journals as European Sociological Review, Sociology of Education, American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Cultural Sociology, Journal of Classical Sociology, and others, as well as Russian academic journals. He edited and wrote the introduction to the Russian translation of ‘The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.’ Dmitry has been a long-time proponent of the Strong Program in cultural sociology, and a CCS faculty fellow since 2010. Currently, he is developing a cultural sociological theory of cathexis, one that advances the strong program while also connecting it to new developments in the sociology of culture and cognition. (Visiting Faculty Fellow - September, 2024 to September, 2025)
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Marcel Knöchelmann is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University, with a Walter Benjamin-Scholarship of the German Research Foundation. His scholarly interests are civil sphere theory, discourse ethics, and how the two can be used to understand authorship and literary fiction in society. In Spring 2024, Marcel is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Literature & Society Lab at the Czech Academy of Sciences. Marcel received his PhD from University College London in 2021 with a cultural sociology of authorship and publishing in the humanities. He is a trained bookseller. (Postdoctoral Fellow - March, 2024 to March, 2026).
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Kamile Grusauskaite is a cultural sociologist specializing in media and digital culture. Holding a PhD in Social Sciences from KU Leuven (Belgium), she is currently an FWO postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven and a visiting fellow at Yale University’s Center for Cultural Sociology. Her research explores the intersections of disinformation, internet policy, deviance, online communities, platform governance, and gender. Her work has been published in leading journals such as Cultural Sociology, Social Media + Society, New Media & Society, and Public Understanding of Science. (Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow 2024-25)
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 Ruitong Li, Fudan University, China
Ruitong Li is a PhD candidate in Sociology at Fudan University, China. His research interests lie in cultural sociology, with a particular focus on codes, the material representation of meaning, and narratives and memory in cultural trauma. Additionally, he is interested in topics related to risk and disaster, science and technology studies (STS), and ethnographic methods. In his PhD dissertation, “Disaster and Routine: The Scientific Practice and Meaning-Making of Earthquake Early Warning Technology,” he employs laboratory ethnography to analyze how disaster is interpreted through technological processes and the normalization of disaster. (Visiting Assistant In Research - 2025)
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 Siglinde Peetz, University of Bern, Switzerland
Siglinde Peetz is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Bern, Switzerland. In her dissertation (“Making a moral case – digital data in public communication”) she analyzes the emergence and dynamics of scandals and controversies in public communication under digital conditions using case studies. Her expertise therefore includes sociological theory, media, digital communication, qualitative methods, and morality. (Visiting Assistant in Research - February 1 - September 30, 2025)
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 Beer Prakken, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Beer Prakken is an interfaculty PhD candidate at the University of Groningen, affiliated with the Department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy and the Department of European Literature and Culture. In his PhD research, Beer analyzes the role of play and humor in political rhetoric and the ethics surrounding it. His interests center on contemporary political phenomena such as Trumpism, populism, and the concept of dark play trolling as a radicalizing force in political discourse.
At the Center of Cultural Sociology, Beer will be researching the affective experiences at political campaign rallies. His interdisciplinary approach bridges philosophy, cultural sociology, and political theory, contributing to a deeper understanding of play and humor in contemporary politics (Visiting Assistant in Research - Spring 2025).
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 Aleksandra Barjaktarevic, Max-Weber-Institute (MWI), Heidelberg University, Germany
Aleksandra Barjaktarević is a sociologist and art historian who specializes in classical and current sociological theories, sociology of culture, and sociology of arts and architecture, as well as methods of qualitative social research. Since 2021, she has been working as a research and teaching assistant at the Max Weber Institute of Sociology in Heidelberg, Germany. She holds a B.A. degree in Art History and Sociology, as well as two M.A. degrees in Art History and Sociology, both with honors, from Heidelberg University, Germany. Her current Ph.D. project focuses on interpreting and situating Max Weber’s unwritten theory of the arts and exploring its potential. In this project, she explores methodological and intellectual debates in the early 20th century, particularly Alois Riegl’s art-historical concept of ‘Kunstwollen’. Her latest publication covers the institutional analyses of the documenta biennial. In her teaching, she frequently collaborates with art institutions, festivals, and artists. Recently, she has been recognized with two teaching prizes for the most innovative teaching approach and the best course in the academic year 2023/24 for a seminar on theorizing German rap music that was part of a collaboration with Berlin-based rap artist PTK. (Research Affiliate - Fall 2024)
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