The 19th Annual Graduate Conference in European History (GRACEH) (Web)

Time: 07.-09.04.2025
Venue: University of Vienna – and virtual space
Proposals by: 06.01.2024

GRACEH 2025 offers a platform to explore the complex interplay between legal systems and the diverse social fabric of Europe across different historical spaces and periods. Europe’s rich cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity has shaped numerous legal traditions, often oscillating between integration and exclusion. The conference seeks to examine the interaction between legal structures and social diversity as well as the role of law in promoting or suppressing diversity from a historical perspective. In this context, diversity can be understood as the variety of identities, social groups and cultural backgrounds. It includes among other aspects, differences in terms of encompassing gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, social class and DisAbilities.
Gustav Klimt’s Faculty Painting “Jurisprudence”, provides a visual basis for the conference theme and symbolizes the complex relationship between law, power and human destiny. The painting does not emphasize the clear order and rationality of law, but rather its ambivalence, and its often unforeseen consequences. This multifaceted depiction of law opens up the discourse about the sanctioning of diversity and the use of law as an instrument to enforce social norms or to exclude certain groups. Proposed contributions could, for example, deal with the legal challenges and developments in the area of minority rights. Migration and the legal measures of integration, as well as DisAbilities and LGBTIQ* are further central topics. Moreover, questions could revolve around diversity of the law itself, for example in the context of colonialism, multinormativity or around spaces of “lawlessness” which offer insights into normative practices and opportunities outside of the legal system.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

1. Diversity in Law
Throughout history, the law has categorized certain people and behaviors as “normal” and others as “deviant”. Such categorizations are often the result of social and cultural norms embedded in the legal system. What categorizations can be found within the law? What was considered the norm in different times and places and how are certain people or behaviors categorized as “deviant”? In what way were certain people treated differently? Read more … (Web)