Visiting Fellows
Applications 2022
The call for our visiting fellows programme 2022 is now open.
The fellowship scheme is set up to support junior scholars (PhD students and postdocs) who wish to undertake a short-term research stay at the institute. The programme is open to all working broadly on interdisciplinary topics at the intersections between law, the humanities and the social sciences. Focusing on critical and theoretical approaches, the institute aims to bring together a diverse group of scholars who read and think widely across fields, contexts and disciplines.
We particularly welcome applications from those working on projects that connect with our own core interests. Currently, these include:
- Legal Futures and Futurity
- Law and New Technologies
- Law and the Life Sciences
- Theories of Justice and Histories of the Judiciary
- Law, Art, Politics
The deadline for submissions is Thursday 30 September 2021.
Please consult the Guidelines for Applicants document (below) for further details on eligibility, application process and assessment criteria.
Fellows 2021
Laura Knöpfel
Anthropological Re-imaginings of Private Law: A Legal Ethnography of Corporate Personhood and Responsibility of the Multinational Enterprise
Dates of Stay: tbc
Laura Knöpfel is interested in the governance of global value chains at the intersection between law and anthropology. In her PhD at King's College London, she researches the negotiation of corporate responsibility in transnational economic relations and conducted fieldwork in the Colombian mining sector. Her project develops a methodological and conceptual approach to integrate these empirical observations with social theory and legal technique. A particular emphasis lies on the potential of private law to develop, advance, and integrate societal transformations. Laura was a guest researcher at the European University Institute in Florence and the Pontifica Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. She had studied law and social sciences at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Bern. Besides her academic work, Laura has worked on transnational human rights and tort cases for King's Human Rights and Environment Clinic and different NGOs in England and Switzerland.
Nicole Karam
Diderot and Enlightenment Judicial Philosophy
Dates of Stay: tbc
Nicole Karam is a scholar of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France and French legal culture. Her work is situated at the intersections of law, literature, history, theology, and the history of medicine, with research and teaching interests that include the history of the idea of taste and Enlightenment-era theories of judicial utopia. She is particularly interested in the ways in which legal eloquence was defined and discerned both within and without the legal profession from the sixteenth century until its dissolution in 1790. Nicole recently defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Poetry in the Praetorium: Legal Eloquence in Prerevolutionary France” in the department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University, and holds a JD from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Law. Her work has been supported by research fellowships including the Singleton Center and the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
About
The visiting fellows programme is designed to facilitate intellectual exchange between our members and the wider academic community. The scheme accommodates junior scholars who wish to spend a period of time in Lucerne pursuing work that overlaps with or otherwise complements scholarly activities currently being pursued at the institute. During their stay, fellows enjoy access to our specialist resources, and are invited to share and develop their ideas under the supervision of one or more of our faculty.
Tailored to PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers, the programme is open to all working critically, theoretically and innovatively at the intersections between law, the humanities and the social sciences. A leading aim of the scheme is to foster conversations that cut across borders both geographic and disciplinary. We strongly believe that the academic and international diversity of our fellows greatly enriches the intellectual life of the institute.
Fellowship at a Glance
Visiting fellows are provided with workspace at the university, some administrative support, and economy travel to and from Lucerne. The institute also covers the fellow’s housing costs (up to a designated maximum) and provides a weekly stipend towards living expenses.
During the period of their visit, fellows are invited to contribute fully to the intellectual life of the institute by participating in our programme of workshops, seminars, reading groups and colloquia. They are encouraged to interact with all our members, including our own PhD and postdoctoral researchers, and are invited to take advantage of activities on offer across the university.
It is expected that fellows are resident in Lucerne for the duration of their stay. Upon completion of their visit, fellows are requested to submit a short report of their experiences.
For fuller details, please consult the Guidelines for Applicants.
Enquiries
Informal enquiries about possibilities for visiting the institute as a fellow are welcome at all times. Please contact Dr. Steven Howe (steven.howe@unilu.ch).
Contact
Please direct all enquiries to Dr. Steven Howe (steven.howe@unilu.ch).