Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law

We’re happy to announce that the 5th Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law will be held from August 4 – 16, 2014 at the University of Osnabrück. The 5th International Osnabrück Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law aims to further encourage and promote the interdisciplinary study and research of the interrelations between law and culture, based on the idea that the extended cultural study of the law will foster profitable scholarly exchange and dialogue between legal studies and the humanities. The Summer Institute was founded in 2009 and since then has hosted more than 120 students from over 80 countries.

The Osnabrück Summer Institute brings together leading scholars in the field of cultural legal studies with international graduate students from the humanities, legal studies, the social and political sciences, art, and history in order to create a high profile opportunity for the comparative study of law and culture and their complex relation. The Institute provides an effective combination of workshops, lectures, panels and presentations, both by faculty members from the participating institutions and a number of guest lecturers, specifically selected as leading experts in their respective fields. The Institute will offer placements for 20-30 international graduate students (PhD and post-doc level) for a period of two weeks. A limited number of scholarships and travel grants are available.

Most recent Summer Institute faculty included: Rosemary Coombe (York/Toronto), Fiona Macmillan (Birkbeck), Helle Porsdam (U Copenhagen), Joseph Slaughter (Columbia), and Kay Schaffer (U Adelaide).

We are inviting qualified students from all over the world whose work is concerned with the interdependence and interaction between law and culture to join a unique experience of scholarly collaboration and exchange during an intensive program with workshops, public lectures, panel discussions, and excursions.

The call for applications will open in January 2014. You can download the announcement poster here.

The 2012 Osnabrück Graduate Summer Institute on the Cultural Study of the Law lies behind us now, which gives us an opportunity to look back. Convenors and participants engaged in two exciting weeks full of discussions, workshops, lectures, dialogue, and interdisciplinary exchanges and made the Institute a great success.

As the director of the Summer Institute, Prof. Peter Schneck, pointed out: “If success is marked by the degree of overall motivation, personal involvement and intensity of individual investment by everyone concerned, this Institute has set an impressing and, indeed, impressive, record – a tough act to follow, for sure!”

“We’d like to take the opportunity and thank our outstanding team of convenors as well as our participants for these great two weeks,” Summer Institute coordinator Dr. Sabine N. Meyer stated in her final remarks. “Of course, our thanks  also goes to all those who supported this event, especially the University of Osnabrück, the Volkswagen Foundation, and the whole Summer Institute team,” Meyer added.

The IfAA team is now already starting preparations for the next Institute. Dates will be announced soon.