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About ConTrans
Modern constitutions are at the centre of sociopolitical hopes and conflicts. Often understood as foundational documents of modern nation-states, they are associated with permanence and stability. However, the limits of the modern conception of constitutions become apparent when it comes to understanding the foundational orders of societies and communities across space and time. Constitutions are based on social practices, making them a factor in the process of adaptation of social orders. This dimension becomes especially prominent in times of economic, social, and political change and crisis but has so far been neglected. This implies the need for a consistently interdisciplinary approach.
To this end, ConTrans brings perspectives from different disciplines together for the first time – from law and history to literary studies and psychology – in a comprehensive and sustained endeavour to investigate constitutions as social practices. Only in this way is it possible to comprehend variations of constitutionality across space and time. They range from symbols, rituals, and procedures to the discursive function of ‘ancient constitutions’ in modern debates. This requires an innovative analytical framework to explore communicative and institutional practices of different actors.
The goal of the participating researchers is to establish an international and interdisciplinary constitutional research programme in the humanities and social sciences through ConTrans and to give it concrete form in a Freiburg Centre for Interdisciplinary Constitutional Studies (FreiCIC).
Sobre ConTrans
As constituições modernas se encontram no centro das esperanças e dos conflitos sociopolíticos. Frequentemente entendidas como documentos fundacionais, elas são comumente associadas à permanência e estabilidade. Contudo, ao buscar compreender as ordens fundacionais de sociedades e comunidades em diferentes tempos e contextos, os limites da concepção moderna de constituição tornam-se evidentes. Constituições se alicerçam sobre práticas sociais, tornando-se fatores relevantes no processo contínuo de adaptação das sociedades. Essa dimensão prática do fenômeno constitucional é especialmente evidente em períodos de transformação e crise econômica, social e política, mas tem sido amplamente negligenciada. Para investigá-la, uma abordagem interdisciplinar consistente é necessária.
De modo inédito, ConTrans visa aproximar perspectivas de várias disciplinas — desde as ciências jurídicas e a história até a literatura e a psicologia — em um esforço abrangente e de longo prazo para repensar e estudar constituições como práticas sociais. Assim, é possível explorar diferentes variantes históricas e culturais de constitucionalidade. Estas variantes incluem símbolos, rituais e procedimentos, além das funções discursivas de “constituições ancestrais” em debates contemporâneos. Capturá-las requer um aparato analítico inovador que permita a investigação de práticas comunicativas e institucionais diversas.
O objetivo dos pesquisadores envolvidos é estabelecer uma rede internacional e interdisciplinar capaz de integrar diferentes disciplinas das humanidades e ciências sociais, proporcionando visibilidade ao futuro “Centro de Estudos Constitucionais Interdisciplinares” (sigla em inglês: FreiCIC), a ser fundado em Freiburg.
关于 ConTrans
现代宪法处于社会政治希望和冲突的核心。宪法通常被认为是现代民族国家的奠基性文件，并与延续性和稳定性联系相联系。然而，想要理解社会和社群在时间和空间中的基本秩序，对宪法的现代理解的局限性便显而易见了。所有宪法以社会实践为基础，这使其成为社会秩序调整过程中的一个因素。在经济、社会和政治变革以及危机时期，这一维度尤为明显，但迄今为止尚未受到足够重视。因此，目前亟需采取一个具有持续性的，跨学科的学术研究方法。
ConTrans首次汇集了多种学科的视角——从法学、历史学到文学和心理学——并在一个全面且长期的尝试中， 研究作为社会实践的宪法。只有这样，才能跨越时间和空间捕捉到宪法的多样性。这些多样性的实践包括从符号、仪式和程序，以及“古代宪法 ”在现代冲突中的话语功能。因此，学术研究需要一个创新的框架来分析框架，以展开对不同参与者的沟通和制度实践的研究。
相关学者的目标是通过ConTrans为宪法研究建立一个国际跨学科平台，从而将人文和社会科学结合起来，并在弗赖堡跨学科宪法研究中心（FreiCIC）中予以推广。
Informacje o ConTrans
Współczesne konstytucje znajdują się w centrum społeczno-politycznych nadziei i konfliktów. Często rozumiane jako dokumenty założycielskie współczesnych państw narodowych, kojarzone są z trwałością i stabilnością. Jeśli jednak chcemy zrozumieć podstawowe struktury społeczeństw i społeczności w czasie i przestrzeni, ograniczenia współczesnego rozumienia konstytucji stają się oczywiste. Konstytucje opierają się na praktykach społecznych, one są faktorem w procesie adaptacji porządków społecznych. Wymiar ten staje się szczególnie wyraźny w czasach zmian i kryzysów gospodarczych, społecznych i politycznych, ale do tej pory był zaniedbywany. Konieczne jest zatem spójne podejście interdyscyplinarne.
Po raz pierwszy ConTrans łączy perspektywy z szerokiego zakresu dyscyplin – od prawa i historii do literatury i psychologi – w kompleksowej i długoterminowej próbie analizy konstytucji jako praktyk społecznych. Jest to jedyny sposób na uchwycenie odmian konstytucyjności w przestrzeni i czasie. Odmiany konstytucyjności obejmują symbole, rytuały i procedury, a także dyskursywną funkcję „starożytnych konstytucji” we współczesnych konfliktach. Wymaga to innowacyjnych ram analizy praktyk komunikacyjnych i instytucjonalnych różnych podmiotów.
Celem uczestniczących badaczy jest wykorzystanie ConTrans do ustanowienia międzynarodowych i interdyscyplinarnych badań konstytucyjnych w naukach humanistycznych i społecznych oraz uczynienie ich widocznymi we Freiburskim Centrum Interdyscyplinarnych Studiów Konstytucyjnych (FreiCIC).
Participating faculties
Articles
Conferences
Further events
Speakers
Prof. Dr. Matthias Jestaedt
Prof. Dr. Matthias Jestaedt is Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory at the Institute of Political Science and Philosophy of Law, where he serves as director of the Department of Legal Theory at the Faculty of Law. He is also an international correspondent of the Hans Kelsen Institute in Vienna, as well as a member of its board of directors since 2012. He is head of the Hans-Kelsen-Forschungsstelle. He has been a member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature since 2014. His research foci are constitutional law and constitutional comparison, European human rights protection, state-church law, legal theory and theory of legal science, child and youth welfare law, and Hans Kelsen. He is a member of the ‘GE Commission to Address Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Freiburg’.
Prof. Dr. Jörn Leonhard
Prof. Dr. Jörn Leonhard is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Western European History at the Department of History, Faculty of Humanities. He was the founding director of the School of History at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS). His work has been recognized with the Baden-Württemberg State Research Prize, among others. His research focuses on comparative European and global history of the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in relation to the topics war and peace, violence and politics, and empires and nation-states. He is a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, an honorary fellow at the University of Oxford’s Wadham College, and a member of the academic advisory boards of the House of History Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart and the German Historical Institute London. He is currently directing the research project ‘The World Crisis, 1918–1941’, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation’s Opus Magnum Programme.
Prof. Dr. Sitta von Reden
Prof. Dr. Sitta von Reden is Professor of Ancient History at the Departmentof Ancient History, Faculty of Humanities. Apart from supporting ConTrans, she is spokesperson of the Research Training Group “Empires: Dynamic Transformation, Temporality and Postimperial Orders” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft since 2020. Between 2017 and 2023, she was principal investigator of the project “Beyond the Silk Road: Economic Exchange, Frontier Zones, and Interimperiality (300 BCE–300 CE)”, which was awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council. Alongside teaching Ancient History, she was Dean of Studies of the Liberal Arts and Science Programme of the University College Freiburg and participates in the Master’s Programme “Interdisciplinary Anthropology” at the University of Freiburg. Besides ancient Greek history in general, her research focuses on ancient economic and global history, Hellenistic Egypt, the political culture of Greece and Athens, as well as comparative history of ancient empires.
Principal Investigators
Awards
Related projects of our PIs
FRIAS Project Group: Post-war Times: Plurality – Temporality – Re/Constructions
Prof. Dr André Krischer, Prof. Dr Elisabeth Piller and Prof. Dr Paulina Starski are involved in the FRIAS Project Group Post-war Times: Plurality – Temporality – Re/Constructions.
Hans Kelsen Online
Prof Matthias Jestaedt and Dr Rodrigo Cadore are involved in the project “Hans Kelsen Werke”, in which the complete works of the legal and constitutional theorist Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) are being made digitally accessible in a historical-critical hybrid edition.
