Table of contents
Research Interests
- Cultures of Work
- Gender Studies
- Authoritarianism
- Critical Education
Profile
Education
| 2022-2026 | PhD in Cultural Studies (expected award date 09/26), University of Zurich |
| 2018-2021 | MA in Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, University of Graz |
| 2017-2021 | BA in Sociology, University of Graz |
| 2015-2018 | BA in Cultural Anthropology/European Ethnology, University of Graz |
Work Experience
| 2024 | Visiting Scholar, Cornelia Goethe Center for Gender Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt |
| 2021-2026 | Doctoral Researcher, Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich |
| 2017-2021 | Student Research Assistant, Institute for Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, University of Graz |
Journals
| From 2026 |
Swiss Journal for Cultural Anthropology (SJCA), Editorial board member |
| 2020-2021 | «Gewitter», Editorial board member |
| 2017-2020 | «kuckuck. Notizen zur Alltagskultur», Editorial board member |
Academic Service (Selection)
| 2024-present |
Deputy Representative (elected), Association of Academic Staff, University of Zurich; Member of the Faculty Assembly, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences |
| 2022-present |
Board member (elected), Zurich Section, Cultural Studies Switzerland |
Selected Invited Talks
| On the Epistemic Limits of Solidarity-Based Ethnography, Invited talk, University of Vienna, 2026. |
| ‘Lebensweise’ Revisited: A Feminist Reappraisal. Invited lecture, University of Bamberg, 2025. |
|
Voting Blue: Ethnographic Case Studies on the Appeal of the FPÖ and AfD among Working-Class Women and LGBTQ+ Communities (with Patrick Wielowiejski). Invited talk, University of Vienna, 2025. |
|
The Everyday Lives of Contemporary Factory Workers: Reproductive Labour, Agency Work, and Their Political Consequences. Invited talk, University of Graz, 2024. |
|
When Reproductive Work Leads to the Factory, Invited lecture, Humboldt University of Berlin, 2024. |
Publications (Selection)
| Bäumel, Laura (2026): | "Retronormative Desire: Nostalgia, Antifeminism and the Far-Right Appeal to Working-Class Mothers in Austria". Journal of Gender Studies. (Paper accepted) |
| Bäumel, Laura (2026): |
“‘But We Were All in the Same Boat Anyway’: How Factory Workers in Austria Narrate the COVID-19 Pandemic.” In Silke Schicktanz, Richard Hölzl and Andrew Gross (eds.), Narrating Pandemics: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Representations of Communicable Disease, pp. 33–50. Bielefeld: transcript. |
| Bäumel, Laura (2025): | “Better the Kitchen than the Factory: On the Retronormative Desire of Working Mothers”. FOR 10: Free Market, Solidarity, Fear, pp. 26–33. |
Further publications and activities
see CV in German