Brigitte Aulenbacher has been associated with the Johannes Kepler University Linz as a retired professor since October 2024. From September 2008 to September 2024, she held the Chair of Sociology with a focus on sociological theory and social analysis (with a special emphasis on the gender dimension). She headed the Department for the Theory of Society and Social Analyses (until 2018: Theoretical Sociology and Social Analyses) at the Institute of Sociology of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences. In addition to numerous other activities in self-administration (e.g. in study commissions, in the working group for equal treatment issues), she was involved in the development of the Johannes Kepler University Linz for six years as Chair of the Institute, nine years as a member of the Senate and three years as spokesperson for the Professorial Curia in the Senate.

Brigitte Aulenbacher's research and teaching activities and her other academic commitments cover the following areas: The theory of society and analysis of capitalism, sociology of work and labour studies, sociology of care, research on the welfare state, gender and intersectionality studies, public sociology. She has taken responsibility for courses in the aforementioned research areas in the degree programmes Sociology (Bachelor, Master, Doctorate), Political Education (Master), Digital Society (Master), scientific projects and scientifically and socio-politically relevant events. Theoretically, her works combines traditions of critical theory, contemporary analyses of society and capitalism, institutionalist theory and labour sociology approaches and feminist and intersectional perspectives. Empirical research projects have dealt with the organisation of work in the clothing industry, the development of work and knowledge in the face of the marketisation of universities, live-in work and care in international comparison, the digitalisation of elderly care and nursing, and tendencies towards the marketisation and communitisation of care work.  She is currently researching and publishing on care, care work and the transformation of contemporary capitalism from a critical perspective.

In Germany, Brigitte Aulenbacher studied sociology at the University of Saarland, Saarbrücken, and the University of Bielefeld (1979-1984), where she gained her doctorate in 1990. Her post-doctoral thesis (Habilitation) was approved in sociology at the Leibniz University of Hanover (2004). She has also taught and researched as a research associate, assistant, visiting or deputy professor at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Ruhr University Bochum, TU Dortmund University and Georg August University Göttingen. Research stays have taken her to New York and New Jersey/USA. She was appointed to the University of Potsdam and the Humboldt University of Berlin (2008, 2013, rejected).

In connection with her professorship at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, she was a Permanent Fellow at the Research Group ‘Post-Growth Societies’ of the DFG Research Training Group on the topic ‘Landnahme, Acceleration, Activation. (De-)Stabilisation of Modern Growth Societies’ at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (2012-19). In 2017, she was nominated by the Johannes Kepler University for the Ars Docendi State Prize for Excellent Teaching and included in the Atlas of Good Teaching. In 2018, she co-founded the International Karl Polanyi Society, which is based at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, and has been its vice president ever since. In 2019, together with other founding members, she was awarded the Kurt Rothschild Prize for Economic Journalism for her work on Karl Polanyi. In 2024, her work was published in the Festschrift ‘Gesellschaft in Transformation. Sorge, Kämpfe und Kapitalismus’.

As a trustee at the Hans Böckler Foundation, Brigitte Aulenbacher supervised students and Phd-candidates for over three decades from the 1990s onwards. She served as a member and deputy speaker of the Research Committee Womens‘ and Gender Studies in the German Sociological Association (2004-2008). In the Austrian Sociological Association, she was the spokesperson of the Feminist Theory and Gender Studies section (2013-2017). She was involved in the organisation of the 3rd ISA Forum of Sociology of the International Sociological Association at the University of Vienna (2016) as Vice-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee. In the International Sociological Association, she co-edited Global Dialogue, its multilingual magazine, for five years and was a member of the Publication Committee (2018-2022).

Brigitte Aulenbacher was and is a member of scientific advisory boards, scientific initiatives and funding organisations (e.g. Diskurs, Association for Critical Social Research, Momentum, Karl Polanyi Center, etc.) and has provided peer reviews for various research funding bodies and international journals. As a public sociologist, she has participated and continues to participate in numerous socio-political events and debates, has organised and continues to organise numerous conferences and conference series and has cooperated and continues to cooperate with civil society actors, NGOs, educational institutions and interest groups (such as chambers of labour, trade unions, museums, adult education centres, church institutions, etc.). She has been involved in two travelling exhibitions on the works of Marx and Polanyi and their significance for the critique of contemporary capitalism, which are shown in universities, adult education centres, museums, chambers of labour and many other places.

Book series

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Haubner, Tine/Riegraf, Birgit/Scherschel, Karin (Hg.), 2013 fortlaufend, Arbeitsgesellschaft im Wandel, Buchreihe im Verlag Beltz Juventa: Weinheim und Basel  

Monographs and article collections

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Riegraf, Birgit/Völker, Susanne, 2015, Feministische Kapitalismuskritik, Einstiege in bedeutende Forschungsfelder mit einem Interview mit Ariel Salleh, Reihe Einstiege, Westfälisches Dampfboot: Münster (2. Auflage 2018)

Aulenbacher, Brigitte, 2005, Rationalisierung und Geschlecht in soziologischen Gegenwartsanalysen, Reihe Geschlecht & Gesellschaft, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: Wiesbaden

Collected volumes

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Lutz, Helma/Palenga-Möllenbeck, Ewa/Schwiter, Karin (Eds.), 2024, Home Care for Sale, The Transnational Brokering of Senior Care in Europe, Sage: Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Deppe, Frank/Dörre, Klaus/Ehlscheid, Christoph/Pickshaus, Klaus (Hg.), 2021, Mosaiklinke Zukunftspfade, Gewerkschaft – Politik – Wissenschaft, Westfälisches Dampfboot: Münster

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Lutz, Helma/Schwiter, Karin (Hg.), 2021, Gute Sorge ohne gute Arbeit? Live-in-Care in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, Beltz Juventa: Weinheim und Basel

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Marterbauer, Markus/Novy, Andreas/Polanyi-Levitt, Kari/Thurnher, Armin (Eds.), 2020, Karl Polanyi – The Life and Works of an Epochal Thinker, Falter Verlag, Wien

Atzmüller, Roland/Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Brand, Ulrich/Décieux, Fabienne/ Fischer, Karin/Sauer, Birgit (Eds.), 2019, Capitalism in Transformation, Movements and Countermovements in the 21st Century, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Burawoy, Michael/Dörre, Klaus/Sittel, Johanna (Hg.), 2017,  Öffentliche Soziologie, Wissenschaft im Dialog mit der Gesellschaft, Campus: Frankfurt a.M./New York

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Dammayr, Maria/Dörre, Klaus/Menz, Wolfgang/Riegraf, Birgit/Wolf, Harald (Hg.), 2017, Leistung und Gerechtigkeit, Das umstrittene Versprechen des Kapitalismus, Beltz Juventa, Weinheim und Basel

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Dammayr, Maria (Hg.), 2014, Für sich und andere sorgen, Krise und Zukunft von Care in der modernen Gesellschaft, Reihe Arbeitsgesellschaft im Wandel, BeltzJuventa: Weinheim und Basel

Appelt, Erna/Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Wetterer, Angelika Wetterer (Hg.), 2013, Gesellschaft. Feministische Krisendiagnosen, Band 37 der Reihe Forum Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung der Sektion Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung in der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Westfälisches Dampfboot: Münster (2. Auflage 2014)

Riegraf, Birgit/Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Kirsch-Auwärter, Edit/Müller, Ursula (Eds.), 2010,  GenderChange in Academia: Re-Mapping the Fields of Work, Knowledge, and Politics from a Gender Perspective, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften: Wiesbaden

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Wetterer, Angelika (Hg.), 2009, Arbeit, Perspektiven und Diagnosen der Geschlechterforschung, Forum Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung Band 25,  Westfälisches Dampfboot: Münster (2. Auflage 2012)

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Siegel, Tilla (Hg.), 1995, Diese Welt wird völlig anders sein, Denkmuster der Rationalisierung, Centaurus: Pfaffenweiler

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Goldmann, Monika (Hg.), 1993, Transformationen im Geschlechterverhältnis, Beiträge zur industriellen und gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung, Campus: Frankfurt/ New York

Journals

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Bärnthaler, Richard/Novy, Andreas (Eds.), 2019, Karl Polanyi, “The Great Transformation” and Contemporary Capitalism, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Vol. 44, No. 2/2019, Springer VS, Wiesbaden

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Lutz, Helma/Riegraf, Birgit (Eds.), 2018, Global Sociology of Care and Care Work, Current Sociology Monograph, Vol. 66, No. 4, Monograph 2, Sage, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington 

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Riegraf, Birgit (Eds.), 2018, Care and Care Work – A Question of Economy, Justice and Democracy, Special Issue, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 37, No. 4, Emerald Publishing, United Kingdom

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Riegraf, Birgit/Theobald, Hildegard (Hg.), 2014, Sorge: Arbeit, Verhältnisse, Regime – Care: Work, Relations, Regimes, Soziale Welt, Sonderband 20, Nomos-Verlag: Baden-Baden

Aulenbacher, Brigitte/Nickel, Hildegard M./Riegraf, Birgit (Hg.), 2012, Geschlecht, Ethnie, Klasse – Perspektiven auf den Gegenwartskapitalismus, Schwerpunktheft, Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 22. Jg., Heft 1/2012

Magazine

Global Dialogue (Magazin der International Sociological Association), Herausgabe durch Michael Burawoy (von der Gründung 2010 bis 2017), Brigitte Aulenbacher und Klaus Dörre (2018-2022), Breno Bringel (seit 2023)  

Touring exhibitions

„Karl Polanyi: Von der entfesselten Wirtschaft zur solidarischen Gesellschaft“, konzipiert und verfasst von Brigitte Aulenbacher, Maria Markantonatou, Andreas Novy, Claus Thomasberger, Harald Wildfellner

„(200 Jahre) Karl Marx … die Welt verändern“, konzipiert und verfasst von Roland Atzmüller, Brigitte Aulenbacher, Ulrich Brand, Fabienne Décieux, Harald Wildfellner

Further selected insights are provided by publication, project and conference lists, which are available for download as PDF files (German):