dr hab. Marta Bucholc

University of Warsaw

Faculty of Sociology

 

Marta Bucholc is a professor of sociology at the Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw. She completed her habilitation in sociology at the University of Warsaw in 2014, following a doctorate in sociology (2006) and master’s degrees in sociology (2000), philosophy (2003), and law (2004). She also holds a D.E.S.S. in corporate law from the Université de Poitiers (2004).

She was Research Professor (Forschungsprofessorin) at the University of Bonn from 2015 to 2020 and Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Warsaw from 2006 to 2021. She served as Co-Ordinator for Social Sciences at Collegium Artes Liberales, University of Warsaw (2012–2015), Deputy Director for Student Affairs at the Institute of Sociology, University of Warsaw (2008–2010), and Director of Postgraduate Studies in Evaluation of European Social Programs (2007–2008).

Marta Bucholc has led and participated in multiple international research projects. She is the Principal Investigator of the ERC Consolidator project “Abortion Figurations: Using Human Rights to Change Abortion Law” (2022–2027), which has a budget of EUR 1,999,000. She leads the National Science Centre-funded SONATA BIS project "National Habitus Formation and the Process of Civilization in Poland After 1989: A Figurational Approach" (2020–2025); she was awarded NCN SONATA and OPUS grants in the past. She also serves as Polish Principal Investigator for the Volkswagen Foundation project “Towards Illiberal Constitutionalism in East Central Europe: Historical Analysis, Comparative and Transnational Perspectives” (2021–2025). Since 2023, she has been Deputy Workgroup Leader in the COST Action CA22121 on “Rising Nationalisms, Shifting Geopolitics, and the Future of European Higher Education/Research Openness”.

Since December 2024, Marta Bucholc has been a member of the Council of the National Science Centre, Poland. She is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET), University of Vienna. She is a Fellow of the Norbert Elias Foundation and has held fellowships and visiting professorships at various institutions, including the University of Cambridge, Selwyn College; the UC Louvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles; the University of Graz; Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna, and the Käte Hamburger Kolleg, University of Bonn. Since 2022, she has been Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences/Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe (KFG) “Universalism and Particularism in European Contemporary History” at the University of Munich.

Prof. Bucholc has contributed to academic publishing, sitting on editorial boards and advisory scientific boards, including “Brill Theory Workshop” series, and journals such as Journal of Law and Society, Studia Socjologiczne, and Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie. She has served as a reviewer and expert for research funding agencies, including the National Science Centre, Swiss National Science Foundation, German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development, Volkswagen Foundation, and Fundación “la Caixa”. 

She also acted as a thesis supervisor and committee member at the Universities of Warsaw, Toruń, Aarhus, Bonn, and Amsterdam, Louvain, at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Graduate School of Social Research of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, as well as at the Oñati International Institute for the Sociology of Law.

Her research interests include socio-legal studies, sociological theory, human rights, and the sociology of knowledge. Her work takes a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, engaging with historical and contemporary sociological questions.

Recent publications:

  • Marta Bucholc, “Legal Governance of Abortion: Interdependencies and Centrifugal Forces in the Global Figuration of Human Rights,” Historical Social Research 49.2/2024: 133-155.
  • Anna Przybylska, Marta Bucholc, Shin Mazur “Freedom of Discussion Versus Predetermined Future in Deliberation Processes,” American Behavioral Scientist 1/2022: 1–22.
  • Marta Bucholc, “Historical Sociology of Law.” In: The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences, ed. D. McCallum, Palgrave Macmillan 2022, pp. 561–576.