The workshop will focus on the theoretical part of Jan Komárek’s book (in progress) The Imaginary Factory: Constitutional Scholars and EUrope’s Constitutionalism (to be published by Cambridge University Press). It will bring together Professor Paul Kahn, whose “cultural study of law” has inspired the general methodological orientation of the project, and various scholars from EUrope who have either adopted a “Kahnian” approach in their own writing or have addressed issues that Komárek examines in the second, “substantive” part of the book (which deals with some key issues in the history and present of EUropean constitutionalism from the 1950s to the present).

Programme:

9:30-10:00               Getting together, coffee, light breakfast

10:00-12:00             Jan Komárek presents the book project, and discusses with Paul Kahn the cultural study of law, with contributions from other participants

12:00-13:00             Buffet lunch

13:00-15:00             Jan Komárek engages other participants and their work, as it relates to the book project

15:00-15:30             Coffee break

15:30-16:30            The prospects of the humanist study of law in the world of (social) science

19:00                        Dinner, restaurant Kuchyň, Hradčanské nám. (https://kuchyn.ambi.cz/en)

Participants:

Jan Komárek, convenor, Professor of EU law, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen and since 2025 Visiting Professor and Donatio Universitatis Carolinae Chair, Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague

Paul Kahn, main guest, Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities and Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights

Jacco Bomhoff, Associate Professor of Law at LSE Law School, the author of Balancing Constitutional Rights: The Origins and Meanings of Postwar Legal Discourse (CUP 2013)

Jacob van de Beeten, Max Weber Fellow, EUI (PhD, LSE Law School, 2024), the author of ‘On Metaphor and Meaning: The Autonomy of EU Legal Order Through the Lens of Project and System’ (2023) 8 European Papers – A Journal on Law and Integration 1441-1464

Antonin Cohen, Professor of political science, Université Paris Nanterre, the author of numerous works in the sociology of European (legal) integration, e.g. ‘Constitutionalism Without Constitution: Transnational Elites Between Political Mobilization and Legal Expertise in the Making of a Constitution for Europe (1940s−1960s)’ (2007) 32 Law & Social Inquiry 109–135

Marco Goldoni, Professor of Philosophy of Law, School of Law, University of Glasgow, the author of ‘Beyond Victimization: On the Lasting Relevance of Political Sacrifice’ (2023) 24 German Law Journal 646-656, part of the special issue he co-edited with Neil Walker on Law and Political Imagination: The Perspective of Paul Kahn

Michaela Hailbronner, Chair of German and International Public Law and Comparative Law at the University of Münster and the author of Traditions and Transformations: The Rise of German Constitutionalism (OUP 2015)

Sabine Mair, Assistant Professor of EU law, University of Amsterdam (and between 2019-2021 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Copenhagen), the author of ‘Kahn in Luxembourg: A Prolegomena to the Cultural Study of EU Law’ (2023) 24 German Law Journal 735-751

Paul Linden-Retek, Associate Professor of Law and Co-director of the Buffalo Human Rights Center, University at Buffalo, School of Law and the author of Postnational Constitutionalism: Europe and the Time of Law (OUP 2023)