Larissa Buchholz Biography

Larissa Buchholz

Larissa Buchholz is an award-winning sociologist who works at the intersections of the sociology of art and culture, global and transnational studies, and theory. She also has interests in comparative-historical sociology, the sociology of markets, and the sociology of intellectuals/knowledge. Holding four graduate degrees (three master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University), Buchholz is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies and Sociology (by courtesy) at Northwestern University, a faculty fellow at the Critical Realism Network Yale University, and an editorial board member of Sociological Theory. Prior to that, she was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, the first woman elected from her discipline.

Buchholz’s recent book, The Global Rules of Art (Princeton University Press, 2022), examines the emergence of a global cultural field and the diverse ways artists become valued worldwide. She has additionally published over twenty academic pieces (including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries), which have been cited by scholars on six continents across subfields in the social sciences and humanities.

Buchholz gave keynotes at Cambridge University, UK (2016), the University of Pennsylvania, USA (2018), the Max Planck Institute Cologne, Germany (2018), and at Uppsala University, Sweden (2022). Her work has garnered multiple awards, including a Fulbright Award, the Alex Inkeles Prize and Robert K. Merton Award at Columbia University, the outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Sociological Association, a William F. Milton Fund Award at Harvard University, the Junior Theorist Prize of the International Sociological Association, the Junior Theorist Award of the American Sociological Association, as well as the outstanding recent Alumni Award of Columbia University. In addition to a Fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows, she was awarded a Junior Thyssen Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study, Central European University. In addition to her academic work, Buchholz has engaged in consulting for art organizations around the globe.