Kolleg welcomes six fellows to Münster

November marks a crucial point in the transition from the initial digital phase of the Kolleg to the now fully established attendance phase. Four fellows have now arrived safely in Münster and moved into their offices. Two more are expected to arrive in the following days. Together with the two researchers who started in September, the first cohort of residence fellows is now complete.

Due to the pandemic, joint work during the first months of the Kolleg could only take place digitally. This worked out surprisingly well thanks to the routine everybody has developed in using online tools. Nevertheless, we are now looking forward to the personal exchange on site, which will particularly shape Kolleg life. Some of the new fellows had already been part of the digital phase and could now finally be welcomed to Münster in person. Over the next four to seven months, the fellows will work on their own research projects, discuss relevant texts and sources in the joint Reading Sessions, and develop new ideas together.

The new fellows in detail:

Dr. Sandra Brunnegger is a legal anthropologist and has been Official Fellow in Law and Anthropology at St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge since 2008. Her multiple research interests include human rights, indigenous legal systems, conceptions of justice, and social movements. At the Kolleg, she examines the coordination of state law with indigenous law in contemporary Colombia.

Dr. Clara Harder is a research associate at the University of Cologne, where she received her PhD in Medieval and Modern History in 2013. Since 2020, the historian has been leading the DFG project "Marginalien der Familie? Soziale und kulturelle Bedeutung von Illegitimität im hochmittelalterlichen Reich (900-1300)." At the Kolleg, she will focus on clerics born out of wedlock and shed light on the connections between normative plurality and an increasingly uniform practice.

Prof. Dr. Kay Peter Jankrift is a medical historian and was most recently a research associate at the Institute for History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine at the University of Ulm. He is concerned with the history of epidemic diseases as well as with the change of medical practices. His project at the Kolleg focuses on the role of physicians as medical experts and witnesses in early modern criminal proceedings.

Prof. Dr. Mirjam Künkler is an anthropologist and expert on politics and law in Indonesia and Iran, on which she has published numerous books and articles. In her current research project at the Kolleg, she compares the ways in which postcolonial states deal with plurality in personal status law. Her work shows that after the unification of law in the wake of independence, re-pluralization is now taking place in many countries.

PD Dr. Gregor Rohmann is a medieval historian who studies the history of the Hanseatic League, religious ideas and practices, the history of the body and medicine, and memorial cultures. At the Kolleg, he investigates how a nuanced terminology for maritime violent actors emerged from the 14th century onwards, which eventually led to the dichotomy of piracy, considered illegitimate, and privateering, supposedly conforming to norms.

Dr. Quentin Verreycken is a research associate at the University of Louvain, where he received his PhD in History, Art History and Archaeology in 2018. He has completed research stays in Southampton, Brussels, and at Harvard University. His research project at the Kolleg comparatively examines the royal power to pardon and its relationship with social and legal norms in late medieval England and France.

We wish all fellows a good start in Münster and look forward to stimulating collaborations.