University of Helsinki, Finland: (17-19 January 2024)

Convenors: Matilda Arvidsson (Gothenburg), Tormod Johansen (Gothenburg), and Panu Minkkinen (Helsinki). Workshop assistant: Rakel Jylhä-Vuorio (Helsinki).

Keynote speaker: Professor Markus Krajeksi (Basel)

Deadline for paper proposals: 16 June 2023

In the Anglophone world, German legal historian and critical legal theorist Cornelia Vismann (1961–2010) is best known as an innovative interpreter of French high theory, especially of Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. This type of reception is, however, limited in the sense that at the same time as it tries to establish common ground that would enable Vismann to take part in the discursive constellations of Anglo-American legal theory, it also neglects the very specifically German media-theoretical soil from which her scholarship arose. For Vismann the media theorist, the critical study of law addressed law’s operations as media and ‘cultural techniques’.

Working towards an edited collection and/or a special issue of a journal, the main aims of this pluridisciplinary event (social sciences, humanities, creative industries, fine arts) are, among other things:

• to investigate Vismann’s media-theoretical contributions and to assess their relevance for the study of law;
• to examine the same potential in the work of other prominent media theorists such as Wolfgang Ernst, Friedrich A. Kittler, Markus Krajewski, Sybille Krämer, Jussi Parikka, Bernhard Siegert, Anna Tuschling, Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, and others;
• to encourage synergy between scholars in the various disciplines; and, finally
• to assess what these media-theoretical insights might offer the critical study of law more generally.

Participation is free, but accepted speakers are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation costs. Limited financial support is available for early-career scholars who are not funded by their home institutions.

For more information including a link to the e-form with which to submit your paper proposal, kindly see:

http://www.panuminkkinen.eu/2023/04/the-cultural-techniques-of-law/