Deadline: 30 August 2013
Open to: researchers and experts worldwide on the four
topics to be discussed at the conference – legal unification; family
law; property; and political and cultural regionalism
Venue: Cluj-Napoca, Romania from 28-30 November 2013
Description
The
Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe at the University of Leipzig and the
University of Siegen have launched a Call for Papers for the conference
“Phantom
borders and legal regionalism. The legal culture in post-imperial and
post-national contexts in East Central Europe 1919 – 1945 – 1989″, that will take place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania in November 2013.
Legal history in and about East Central and Southeast Europe is
probably the field of historiography that is most intensely dominated by
the paradigm of the transfer of norms and institutions. However,
traditional legal history generally does not analyze how these transfers
occurred, which actors expedited them in particular phases and what
their motives for doing so were, how the legal institutes were adapted
and institutionalized, and finally, which impact this had on the
political process and legal reality.
The conference will discuss law, legal culture, institutions
and institutional change as dynamic processes and social practices of
specific actors. Legal culture is thus not understood as a
homogenous phenomenon over space and time, but rather as a changeable
phenomenon that can be made accessible to research in the field of
tension between politics, the legislature, jurisprudence and
jurisdiction, as well as between the professions involved in legal
affairs. Given the chequered political and territorial history of East
Central and Southeast Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries, it can
be assumed that there are more or less effective differences in the
legal culture and that these differences can be territorialized.
Costs
Speakers’ travel and accommodation costs will be covered.
Eligibility
Papers are invited from
researchers and experts worldwide on the defined topics below. Working with four topic areas, the conference will address
legal cultural phantom borders and their reinforcement by specific elite actors and as an expression of social practices:
- Legal unification: transfer and transplants; new codifications; socialist law; Europeanization: During
the interwar period, legal literature examined three ways of
establishing legal unification within a state: a) a legislative “zero
hour” via the rewriting of all basic legal codes and statute books; b) a
complete and immediate extension of a body of laws to the new
provinces; and c) the fundamental extension of a body of laws to the new
provinces accompanied by a temporary and material retention of some
regulations from the new provinces.
- Family law: marriages and divorces, inheritance, guardianship: The
laws on marriage, divorce, inheritance and guardianship belong to the
areas of the legal system that most directly link the normative and
institutional side of the state system with the everyday reality of the
population.
- Property: notions, institutions and professions: Property,
as well as the institutions and professions that deal with it, belong
to the legal-cultural phenomena that have a very high potential to
create phantom borders and to establish regional associative
relationships. This panel will provide a forum for papers that analyse
macro processes such as land reforms, collectivisation and
de-collectivisation / reprivatisation on the three above-mentioned
property levels and present regional and identity discourses and
practices.
- Political and cultural regionalism: The
reconfiguration of nation states following the First World War led to
regionalist movements in many East Central and Southeast European
societies. This panel will discuss regionalist parties, publications,
movements and practices. The construction of regional identities in the
field of tension between the national and imperial or European centres
is of particular interest.
Application
The conference welcomes proposals for a paper in the form of a short statement (1 – 2 pages), including a brief academic CV. Please send your proposal by
30 August 2013 to
muellerd@uni-leipzig.deand
claudia.kraft@uni-siegen.de. The conference will be held in English.
For further inquiries, contact the
Centre for the History and Culture of East Central Europe at the University of Leipzig at muellerd@uni-leipzig.de or the
University of Siegen at claudia.kraft@uni-siegen.de.
