Pierluca Birindelli

Pierluca Birindelli PhD is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Alumnus and Docent of Sociology in the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki. He teaches at Gonzaga University Florence and International Studies Institute (Florence, Italy).

Birindelli earned his PhD in Sociology at the University of Florence and has been a PhD Visiting Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin and at Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Université de Paris). In 2010, he was awarded the qualification of Researcher in Sociology and Cultural Anthropology by CNR, the Italian National Research Council and in 2013 became Docent in Sociology at the University of Helsinki.

Birindelli taught in several academic institutions: University of Florence, Georgetown University, Gonzaga University, International Studies Institute, Kent State University. Within the European Sociological Association he is member of the research networks “Global, Transnational and Cosmopolitan Sociology” (board). In the International Sociological Association he is member of the Research Committees “Sociology of Communication, Knowledge & Culture” and “Sociology of Youth”.

Birindelli has authored a number of articles addressing the themes of individual and collective identity, two books on youth and generations, a monograph about self-identity in late modernity and another book about cultural influences upon local politics and economy. He is also the author of the book The Passage from Youth to Adulthood: Narrative and Cultural Thresholds (2014).

Birindelli adopts a multidisciplinary approach: Cultural Sociology; Social and Cultural Theory; Historical Sociology; Social and Cultural Anthropology; Communication and Narrative Studies.

His research interests include: Individual and Collective Identities; Travel, Cultural Globalization and Cosmopolitanism; European Identity; Social, Cultural, Symbolic and Economic Capital; Education in Comparative Perspective; Media, Self and Society; Human Development in a Comparative Perspective (American, Northern European and Mediterranean Cultural Heritage); Play, Experience and Social Performance.

His current research project is a comparative study: “The Cultural Experience of International Students”.