Michael Berghman

**Michael Berghman** is an Assistant Professor of Sociology of Art and Culture at Erasmus University Rotterdam's Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication. He holds a PhD in Cultural Sociology from KU Leuven and completed postdoctoral research at TU Delft's Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. His work focuses on how context, social stratification, and digital culture shape perceptions of art, music, and design.

**Education**:

• Bachelor/Master in Sociology at University of Antwerp and KU Leuven
• PhD in Cultural Sociology at KU Leuven (2016)

**Research Interests**:

• Embodied taste, cultural products, and social inequality
• Contextual influences on art appreciation
• Music's role in pain management and ritual behavior
• Internet aesthetics and digital self-expression

**Key Contributions**:

• Developed a unified model of aesthetics integrating psychological principles
• Leads research clusters MICS (Music, Industry, Culture, Society) and PCI (Popular Culture and Inequalities)
• Published widely on music genres, online rituals, and cultural stratification

**Awards & Grants**: None explicitly listed in text. Active in grants related to pain management studies and cultural sociology projects.