About me
I am professor of sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Social Sciences at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IFCS-UFRJ) in Brazil. I am currently the Distinguished Max Weber Fellow at the Max Weber Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien in Erfurt. From 2005 till 2018, I taught at the Institute of Social and Political Studies (IESP, formerly known as IUPERJ), also in Rio. Hailing originally from Flanders in Belgium, I have worked at many universities in Europe (University of Manchester, University of Humanist Studies in Utrecht, Brunel University in London, European University Institute in Florence, Université catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Ecole des Hautes en Sciences Sociales in Paris), the United States (UCLA and Yale University) and Brazil (Federal University of Brasília, Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).
I defended my PhD at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1995 on theories of reification in German sociology, from Hegel to Habermas. Published in two volumes in French in 1997-1998, this reconstruction of critical theory is now available in an abbreviated version in English, Portuguese and Turkish. Working at the intersection of philosophy and sociology, my main research interests are related to German social philosophy, Anglo-Saxon social theory and French sociological theory.
I have published a book on the sociology of Georg Simmel (in French), a book on posthumanism and biocapitalism (in French), and a book on critical realism (in English) More recently, together with Alain Caillé, I published For a New Classic Sociology. A Proposition, followed by a Debate (in English and Portuguese). Since 2021, I am one of the editors of MAUSS International. Anti-Utilitarian Interventions in the Social Sciences. I signed a contract with Routledge for Anti-Utilitarian Social Theory. A Habermaussian Perspective. I am currently working on a book on political hermeneutics in which I analyse the political situation in Brazil (2013-2023) from the perspective of Karl Mannheim.
For a more extended description of my current research interests, I refer the reader to the webpage of Sociofilo (in Portuguese), the research lab I direct at IFCS-UFRJ.
I have also written an intellectual biography, a Memorial (in Portuguese), which is an essential piece when you apply for a job in Brazil.
Self-presentation at Innsbruck University (2023)
En français, j’ai aussi produit un CV Analytique
Curriculum Vitae
CV 2023 (English) (French)