Category: Focus
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| FocusHow much activism can academia take?
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Walther Schücking and an international law scholar’s struggle against war News from the United States and Europe currently shows that researchers who are socially and politically engaged are soon subjected to harsh criticism. Walther Schücking,…
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| FocusAgency against authorities
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How individuals and groups use the law to their own advantage In 2025, we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the German Peasants’ War, and the many exhibitions and conferences held on this occasion leave…
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Pardon – balancing justice or arbitrary act?
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The right to pardon usually leads a discreet existence in today’s constitutional states, but thanks to the American presidential election, it has recently hit the headlines. First, the outgoing incumbent Joe Biden aroused attention with…
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Free as a Bird?
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Contribution to the MS Wissenschaft: The mutability of notions of freedom Under the slogan “Freedom”, Science Year 2024 refers explicitly to the 75th anniversary of Germany’s Basic Law, which already points to the close ties…
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| FocusDeath by ordeal: a historical topic that remains a pressing matter today
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Early morning on March 16, 2024, I received an urgent phone call from the producers of the debate show “Causa e Efeito,” broadcast by RTP África, the TV channel of the public service broadcasting organisation of…
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| FocusPluralism of what? On Laws, and on Rights – in Translation
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European legal terminology is often organised in dichotomies. In the continental languages, this holds true for the concept of law itself, which can be ius or lex, droit or loi, diritto or legge, Recht or Gesetz. These dichotomies cannot easily be translated into English. The problem does…
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| FocusReprisal, Annexation, and Guano… oh my!
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While perusing my research at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg I ran across a footnote mentioning a case involving the right of reprisal set before the U.S. Congress in 1857. As a medievalist studying the topic…
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| FocusIdeas of justice in “The Jews’ Beech”. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, on the 175th anniversary of her death
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Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, one of the great German authors of the 19th century, died 175 years ago. She is regarded today as a master of eco-sensitive literature. Her birthplace, Münster in Westphalia, is associated with…
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| FocusDid long-distance trade not have its own intrinsic logic?
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Report on the workshop “How to Ensure Predictability in Legal Pluralism. Northern Europe in the Later Middle Ages” on 5 and 6 October 2022 The workshop focused on merchants engaged in long-distance trade in late-medieval…
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| FocusLaws for the “living dead”: Dealing with those suffering from leprosy from the perspective of medieval law
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Insights into a “different” disease “Leprosy is different”, wrote Richard Toellner in the introductory article of the publication commemorating the 650th anniversary of the Rectorate Münster-Kinderhaus (Toellner 1992: 1-7). With these three words, the then…
