Frédéric Vandenberghe is Professor of Sociology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IFCS-UFRJ) in Brazil where he also directs the Sociofilo lab. Hailing originally from Flanders in Belgium, he has 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. He is the chair of the Research Committee on Sociological Theory (RC 16) of the International Sociological Association (ISA) as well as a member of the Critical Realism Network and the Anti-Utilitarian Movement in the Social Sciences (MAUSS).

Frédéric Vandenberghe works at the intersection of continental philosophy, social theory, and anthropology. Having defended his PhD at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1994 on theories of reification in German sociology, from Hegel to Habermas, he has 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, Frédéric Vandenberghe published For a New Classic Sociology. A Proposition, followed by a Debate (in English and Portuguese). Since 2021, he is one of the editors of MAUSS International. Currently, he is working on a book on political hermeneutics in which he analyses the political situation in Brazil (2013-2023) from the perspective of Karl Mannheim. Together with Christian Papilloud, Frédéric Vandenberghe is also editing a two-volume book on relational sociology. 

His HIAS research project is conceived of as a social-theoretical contribution to the interdisciplinary interpretation of the “signature of the present”. Drawing on social and political theory and the so-called “Studies”, it wants to systematically think through some of the most urgent societal problems of today. And it proposes to do so from the vantage point of Brazil and under the guidance of the pioneering sociology of knowledge of Karl Mannheim.

His collaboration partner is Frank Adloff, Professor of Sociology at Universität Hamburg. 

Frédéric Vandenberghe’s HIAS Fellowship is provided by the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS.