VUB Contextual Research in Law

What Is Legal Theory? Introduction Law and Literature is a vibrant area of interdisciplinary inquiry whose origin is often traced to the publication of James Boyd White’s The Legal Imagination in 1970s America. In recent years, scholars have explored different possibilities for the future development of the interdiscipline, and my presentation is an attempt to contribute to this discussion. I will begin with a brief account of Law and Literature's historical development, and offer some anecdotal comments on my own engagement with it. In the second part of the presentation, I will take a single novel, Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2000), to reflect upon what it might mean to examine the interaction between literature and law in an expanded, global frame.   Biographical note Marietta Auer is the director of the Department for Multidisciplinary Theory of Law at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory (Frankfurt am Main) and is professor for ...

Law and Literature Introduction Law and Literature is a vibrant area of interdisciplinary inquiry whose origin is often traced to the publication of James Boyd White’s The Legal Imagination in 1970s America. In recent years, scholars have explored different possibilities for the future development of the interdiscipline, and my presentation is an attempt to contribute to this discussion. I will begin with a brief account of Law and Literature's historical development, and offer some anecdotal comments on my own engagement with it. In the second part of the presentation, I will take a single novel, Dai Sijie’s Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (2000), to reflect upon what it might mean to examine the interaction between literature and law in an expanded, global frame. Biographical note Marco Wan is Professor at Hong Kong University, where he serves as Director of the Law & Literature Studies Program. He is also Visiting Professor at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Unive...

  Our research group welcomes  three  new researchers. Today we present  João Freitas Mendes , who pursues a PhD in legal theory. More on João's  page .

(image source: Prof. Bastos )   Prof. Cristiana Bastos (Lisboa, ERC Advanced Grantee) will hold this year's opening lecture for the EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History:Labour Migration. The topic is "Across empires: plantation labour in the aftermath of abolition". Background reading can be found on Prof. Bastos' project website , and will be shared at registration. The Connected Learning Community Legal History:Labour Migration brings together the VUB, UPF Barcelona, Ljubljana, Warwick, Nova Lisboa and CY Paris. Five to eight students per institution work together on the common theme of Labour Migration .  The event will take place on Friday 21 October at 15:30 Brussels Time . Registration is mandatory with dr. Elisabeth Bruyère  (Elisabeth dot bruyère at vub dot be).

  The geopolitical background of the debates on international law in the mid-19th century Introduction In the 1840s, Europeans often expressed a deep mistrust of the international order that had been created in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. This feeling resulted from the assertive and often illegal policies of the great powers which made a considerable number of people believe that the world was dominated by the strength of material power instead of written law. With this conviction, the questions of security, justice and international law became more and more debated in Europe. Some contemporaries desired to change the post- Napoleonic order by replacing it with a new one based on the principle of nationhood ensuring greater justice and a more stable peace among free European nations. During the same decade a similar debate on the political-legal coexistence with European countries spread in the United States. The goal of the paper is to reveal this important, but in historica...

  (Image: prof. Fiocchi Malaspina, Zurich, 3 March 2020) Dr. Raphaël Cahen and prof. Frederik Dhondt  co-edited with prof. Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina (Zurich) the special section “Entangled National and International Legal Orders in the Long Nineteenth Century” for the open access journal Forum Historiae Iuris. This section contains the papers presented at a conference hosted by the University of Zurich (Chair prof. Thier) in March 2020. The introduction and the first article (by prof. em. Pietro Costa (Firenze)) are already available. The contributions by prof. Lisa Ford (UNSW), prof. Inge Van Hulle (KU Leuven/Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt) and the three co-editors will be released in batches in the coming weeks. Read the introduction to discover more!

    Our research group welcomes  three  new researchers. Today's colleague in the spotlight is  Rodrick Van der Smissen , who works on 19th century bankrupcy in the framework of an FWO Fundamental Research Project . More on Rodrick's  page .

(image source: Universiteit van Vlaanderen )   Prof. Frederik Dhondt was te gast bij de Universiteit van Vlaanderen over de Spaanse Successieoorlog, of "waarom oorlog geen zin heeft". Meer informatie hier , op  Spotify of op iTunes .

  (image source:  İstanbul Üniversitesi ) drs. Wouter De Rycke ( Researcher on the FWO-Project The Legal Construction of Peace ) will give a paper at the XXVIth Annual Forum of Young Legal Historians in Istanbul next week. Find out more about the program here .

  (image:  De Koning Drinkt  (Jacob Jordaens); bron:  Google Art Project/Wikimedia Commons ) Les Journées d’Histoire du droit et des institutions des pays flamands, picards et wallons se tiendront à Lille les  19 et 20 mai 2023  à Lille, à l’invitation de la section française de la société.  Le thème retenu cette année est  « Boire et Manger » .  « Boire et manger » constitue un enjeu permanent de la vie humaine. Se nourrir est en effet un besoin vital, biologique mais aussi une pratique sociale, culturelle, parfois même identitaire. Cette activité fait alors l’objet de normes sociales mais aussi juridiques : coutumes, règlements et lois. La nourriture donne aussi lieu à des contentieux tant sur le plan communautaire, local, étatique ou international.  Toutefois si sa réglementation peut apparaitre comme un invariant historique, elle prend des dimensions différentes selon les sociétés envisagées, tant dans le temps que dans l’espace. Le ...