Annual Themes

In order to better integrate the Kolleg’s three research perspectives, we will focus the Kolleg’s work on four annual themes during the first funding phase.

During the academic year 2021/22, the theme is “Exception and Plurality”. We will discuss and test against the evidence the methodological question whether the relationship between unity and plurality demarcates the same (or a similar) boundary as the relationship between exception and rule.

2022/23: under the theme “Modes of Standardization”, we will examine historical and modern examples of standardisation that sought to overcome the fragmentation of normative orders in different social constellations.

2023/24 we will take the opposite perspective under the theme “Causes of Plurality” and ask why standardisation frequently fails or reaches its limits and what causes for the fragmentary nature of law in spatial, personal or temporal terms can be discerned.

2024/25 we will concentrate especially on extra-legal factors in the creation and alteration of the law under the theme “Dynamism and Stability”. The focus will be on homogeneity and diversity in social life, mobility, religious unity or plurality as well as other dynamics. From this vantage, our approach, which is based in history and legal history, invites dialogue with neighbouring disciplines.

Apart from the annual themes, there will always be space for unusual perspectives and new impulses and we consequently also welcome projects that fall outside this framework.

Click here for the annual themes of the second funding phase (2025-2029).