University of Bristol

Torsten Geelan

Dr. Torsten Geelan is a sociologist whose work explores the intersections between trade union movements, media counter-power, and just transitions to sustainable economies and societies. He is currently Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Economic Sociology at the University of Bristol. His research is comparative and interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from industrial relations, environmental sociology, environmental labour studies, critical social theory, and media and communication studies. Before joining Bristol, he worked as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Sociology and was a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics’ Department of Media and Communications. He holds an MPhil and PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge and a BA in Economics and Social Studies from the University of Manchester. As a public speaker, he is regularly invited to give talks to research centres, NGOs such as Rethinking Economics, and trade unions in England and Denmark.

Torsten has co-organized the SASE network Alternatives to Capitalism since 2017, which he co-founded with Lara Monticelli, and is co-editor of the Bristol University Press book series Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century. He also co-edited the Palgrave Macmillan volume From Financial Crisis to Social Change: Towards Alternative Horizons (2018; paperback 2020) and has worked as a columnist for the Danish newspaper Dagbladet Information. Torsten’s expertise within debates on alternatives to capitalism centres on how collective actors reinforce or challenge the “common sense” of neoliberalism, eco-modernism, and eco-capitalist realism. He is particularly interested in theoretical and empirical contributions exploring alternatives such as anti-capitalist just transitions, degrowth unionism, democratizing work, the four-day work week, counter-hegemonic media practices, and other forms of worker- or union-led decarbonization and decommodification.

You can read more about his research at www.torstengeelan.com and on his University of Bristol profile.

University of Bristol

Lara Monticelli

Dr. Lara Monticelli is an interdisciplinary scholar and former Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellow whose work is situated at the intersection of economic sociology, the critique of political economy, and critical social theory. She is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sociodigital Futures at the University of Bristol. She previously held positions at Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy), Copenhagen Business School (Denmark), and University College London (United Kingdom). Her research centres on the urgent need to envision alternatives to contemporary capitalism and to drive transitions toward more just, equitable, and sustainable futures. Her work is inspired by, and engages with, prominent contemporary thinkers in what can be called the field of ‘capitalism studies’, such as Nancy Fraser, Silvia Federici, Stefania Barca, Jason Moore, and Erik Olin Wright, among many others.

Lara has co-organized the SASE network Alternatives to Capitalism since 2017, which she co-founded with Torsten Geelan, and is co-editor of the book series “Alternatives to Capitalism in the 21st Century” at Bristol University Press. Lara’s expertise within the vibrant debate on alternatives focuses on how imaginaries of alternative futures are prefigured, contested, and negotiated vis-à-vis contemporary capitalism by various social actors. She is interested in welcoming theoretical and empirical contributions that explore, through an interdisciplinary lens, how alternative futures are imagined and the way in which they are enacted in the present. Examples and case studies include: intentional communities, mutual aid groups, alternative food networks, and grassroots, prefigurative social movements. Lara is also interested in contributions that explore and/or advance our understanding of capitalism, its utopian and dystopian future(s) and its alternatives.

More info about Lara and her research is available on the website: www.laramonticelli.com.

Birmingham City University

Birgan Gokmenoglu

Dr. Birgan Gokmenoglu is a political ethnographer and sociologist working on time and futurity, social movements, radical grassroots politics, and experiments in participatory forms of democracy. She is currently Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Sociology at Birmingham City University (BCU). She holds a PhD in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics (London, UK), an MA in Sociology from the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA, USA), and a BA in Social and Political Sciences from Sabanci University (Istanbul, Turkey). Birgan’s work focuses on the relationship between future imaginaries and political action, particularly as they materialize in horizontalist forms of grassroots organizing. Her commitment to political action for liberated futures is what drives her to contribute to the activist scholarship on political organizing and her research and theoretical agenda to advance the political sociology of time.

Birgan joined the SASE network Alternatives to Capitalism in 2025. As co-organizer, she is particularly interested in anti-capitalist movements as they interact with anti-authoritarianism, anti-capitalist climate activism, and critiques of – and alternatives to – liberal representative democracy. Birgan welcomes contributions that engage with any of the above debates, as well as empirical and theoretical works on movements for social justice, transformative future imaginaries, and radical forms of political organizing. These contributions may involve past and present revolutionary situations, experiments in participatory forms of democracy, or critical theorizations of transformative social change, among other related topics. She encourages submissions that reflect on capitalist or neoliberal authoritarianism both from the Global North and the Global Majority, especially those that learn from the latter.

For more information on Birgan’s work, visit her institutional profile or ORCID account.

Kiel University

Jan Groos

Dr. Jan Groos is a researcher, filmmaker, and podcaster based in Vienna. He studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and completed his PhD in sociology at the Centre for Sociological Theory (Kiel University) where he currently works as part of the DFG project Governing Algorithms. He has been a visiting fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute (2020) and NYU’s Remarque Institute (2024) and is an affiliated researcher at the digital_cultures research cluster at Fernuniversität Hagen and the Critical Data Lab at University Oldenburg. Jan runs the podcast Future Histories as part of his research practice, where he explores alternatives to capitalism in a decisively dialogical mode of inquiry. His research interests range from real utopian sociology, governmentality studies, and democratic planning to digital cultures, sociotechnical imaginaries, and transdisciplinary research practices.

Jan joined the SASE network Alternatives to Capitalism in 2025 as a co-organizer. His expertise lies in investigating imaginaries of alternative futures that are articulated across theory, activism, and creative practice, combined with a focus on democratic sociometabolic planning as a form of alternative construction. As part of the latter Jan co-edited (with Christoph Sorg) an edited volume titled “Creative Construction – Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond” (2025) and a special issue of Competition & Change titled “Rethinking Economic Planning” (2025). As co-organizer he is interested in welcoming contributions that go beyond critique and engage with the question of what desirable alternative modes of collective coordination at a scale could look like. Contributions might address this through the lens of transition, e.g. in the form of  socialization, radical municipalism, real utopias, and commons-public partnerships, or develop alternative imaginaries of futures, proposals for democratic planning, alternative governmentality, and scalable organizational futures more broadly.

More info about Jan is available on: jan-groos.de and futurehistories.today.

Scuola Normale Superiore

Stefano Tortorici

Stefano Tortorici is a PhD Candidate in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy), where he is a member of the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS), and a Research Affiliate at the Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) at The New School in New York City. His research focuses on platform and AI cooperativism and the challenges faced by platform cooperatives in improving working conditions, developing sustainable organizations, and advancing alternative values in the digital economy.

Stefano studied at the Universities of Turin, Bologna, Paris Nanterre, Milano-Bicocca, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and has conducted research at the Platform Cooperativism Consortium at The New School, the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, the Nexa Center for Internet and Society at the Politecnico di Torino, and the Gino Germani Institute at the University of Buenos Aires. His work has been published in Internet Policy Review, Euricse, Routledge, Harvard Business Review, and Jacobin Magazine. He has also co-convened the conferences Countervailing Platform Power at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence and Cooperative AI at the Istanbul Planning Agency in Istanbul.

Stefano joined the SASE network Alternatives to Capitalism in 2026 as a co-organizer. His expertise within the debate on alternatives focuses on platform and AI cooperativism, countervailing platform power, and digital solidarity economies. His work examines how cooperatives can challenge digital capitalism and build alternative digital infrastructures, with particular attention to democratic governance, working conditions, technological development, and the political and economic conditions that shape these efforts. He is particularly interested in contributions on platform and AI cooperatives, collective responses to the concentration of digital power, and efforts to develop alternatives across the digital stack.

More information about Stefano’s research is available on the Scuola Normale Superiore website. Connect with him on LinkedIn.