From European Legal History to Global Legal History
Over the last years, legal history research at the MPILHLT has shifted from a Eurocentric to a global perspective. Led by Prof. Thomas Duve, the department ‘Historical Regimes of Normativity’ has expanded its focus to the Iberian Worlds, including Asia and Africa, collaborating with scholars worldwide, framing legal history as a translation of knowledge of normativity, involving stabilized arrangements.
Now the department has restructured its research profile. The well-established research fields ‘Special Legal Orders’ and ‘Doing Legal History’ will be accompanied by new research fields that concentrate on three specific aspects of the history of law: the production and the glocalization of knowledge of normativity and knowledge of normativity from the sphere of the religious.
In a blog article, Prof. Duve discusses how the new research profile emphasizes interdisciplinary exploration, moving away from spatial classifications and traditional categories, aiming to contribute to a ‘legal history beyond modernity.’