Symposium

Constitutional history on trial – status quo, combined methods and new sources

Historisches Kolleg Munich, 26–28 June 2024

The symposium discusses new approaches to constitutional history, drawing inspiration from other fields, especially from legal sociology and legal anthropology, new cultural and political history, gender studies, the law and literature movement, global history and the study of transnational phenomena. Numerous questions for an interdisciplinary constitutional history arise, including:

• How can we grant non-state actors proper consideration?

• What methods help to analyse unwritten or uncodified constitutions?

• How do constitutional norms relate to interpretation and practice?

• What patterns of meaning and interpretations of the world do constitutions represent?

• How does normativity relate to narration in constitutional texts?

• What social and religious norms compete with constitutions?

• How do underprivileged groups become subjects of constitutions, and what role do social movements play?

• How can we detach constitutional history from its national framework and develop it into a history of entanglement?

• What neglected sources should we analyse, and what familiar sources require re-reading?

The symposium brings together scholars from various disciplines and explores methods of constitutional history of modern and pre-modern times. The point of departure is a broad understanding of constitutions as the basic orders underlying communities.

If you are not able to travel to Munich, you can still join us online:

Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/5629820818?pwd=OHl3SWFSaUdnckhueTFuS0kwZnV1QT09

Meeting-ID: 562 982 0818
Code: 834985