Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - General Sociology

Research interests

Dissertation project

Memberships

Publications, lectures and podcasts

Teaching

Abb.: Peter Labugger

Research interests

Social theory | cultural sociology | practice theory | poststructuralism | subjectivization | time | media | digitalization, algorithms and AI | affect | sociology of decision-making

Member of the research group 'Socionarratology. Mapping a Field Between Literary Studies and Social Sciences'. 

This two-year project brings together leading scholars and emerging researchers to rethink how we conceptualize and narratively imagine society. Our work traces not only the historical intersections between sociology and literary studies but opens new terrain—from the epistemological value of literary knowledge to the sociological uses of narratology, from examining how narrative structures shape social knowledge and affectivities to exploring how cultural sociology can illuminate literary practices.

My own contribution focuses on technology imaginations and the question of how everyday narratives and practices might counter the data doxa of our algorithmicised present.

Funded by the Princeton-Humboldt Strategic Partnership. Organizey by Dr. Marc Ortman and Dr. Florian Fuchs

Philipp Weitzel is the moderator of the practice theory mailing list. Interested parties receive information on calls for papers, conferences and conventions, current publications, etc. To join the list and an established network of praxeologists, send an email to listserv@listserv.dfn.de with the command SUBSCRIBE PRAXISTHEORIE in the body of the email. Alternatively, you can join the mailing list via the website of the German Research Network's list server here.

Dissertation project

Affects, material cultures, temporalities and subjects – my fundamental sociological research interest unfolds in this interconnectedness and interplay: How are subjects formed in an increasingly medialised society? What role do affective and material dynamics play in everyday life? What changes do practices, practice complexes, actions and structures undergo in this context? And what individual and societal effects result from this?
These are questions that drive me to further develop (social) theory and to provide food for thought for civil society and politics in relation to the dynamics of digitalisation and to be able to shape them collaboratively.  

At the centre of my dissertation project is the practice of decision-making as the key mechanism that enables and structures both the construction of subjects and the constitution of society. For decisions mark the point at which options for action are articulated, evaluated and legitimised, enabling them to (de)stabilise and guide subjectifications as well as collective imaginations in a world of contingency.
Algorithms have, however, fundamentally changed the basis on which decisions are made and restructured the rules and patterns of decision-making processes along the way. The aim of my research project is to outline a praxeology of decision-making in an algorithmised present that focuses on the dynamics of automatization, materiality and sociality. A particular focus is on changes in decision-making mechanisms – both technologically and in everyday life – and the question of subjects' agency in this nexus.

Memberships

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS)

European Sociological Association (ESA)