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05 May 2014

CONFERENCE: Law Addressing Diversity: Pre-Modern Europe and India in Comparison (1200-1800AD), 22-25 May 2014



The University of Vienna hosts a conference on "Law Addressing Diversity" in Europa and India, 1200-1800AD (source: HSozUKult).

“Diversity in Unity – Unity in Diversity” has been quoted frequently to characterize both Europe’s and India’s pre-modern societies. The phenomena this phrase attempts to describe were as diverse as the people involved and ranged from acculturation, entanglement and co-existence to segregation, expulsion and elimination. In our workshop, we intend to apply a distinctive perspective by putting the focus on legal experts and their texts. Neither in Europe nor in India were those with legal expertise a coherent group with a uniform background, formation or job description. Different forms of legislation, legal practice, court procedure, legal education, profession, and law enforcement existed in both regions throughout the period from 1200 to 1800. Instead of equality before the law, a legal pluralism was practiced, where specific legal traditions and modes of jurisdiction were assigned to specific social groups. Legal experts, therefore, had to operate within a matrix of legal cultures that matched societal diversity. Law and legal practice on the one hand mirrored societal complexity, and on the other were means to categorize and shape complex societies.

Program:
May 22nd
19.00: Getting Together (Arkadenhof)
May 23rd
9.00: Kings and lawmakers (Chair: Milos Vec)
Corinne Lefèvre, Imperial Management of Legal Diversity: The Mughal Case (I)
Sanjog Rupakheti, Status Differentiated Law and State Formation in Early Modern Himalayan South Asia (I)
Cynthia Neville, The Limitations of Royal Justice in Later Medieval Scotland (E)
Discussion
11.00: Coffee Break
11.20: Courts and court practices (Chair: Julie Billaud)
Farhat Hasan, The Qazi’s Court in Mughal India: Imperial Laws and Local Practices (I)
Sara M. Butler, Rejecting the Common Law: Standing Mute in Medieval England (E)
Discussion
12.45: Lunch Break
14.15: Legal Pluralism (Chair: Rohit De)
Nadeera Rupesinghe, Legal pluralism in early modern Sri Lanka (I)
André Wink, Law and Society in Medieval India (I)
Mia Korpiola, Legal diversity – or the Relative Lack of It – in Early Modern Sweden (E)
Discussion
16.15: Tea Break
16.35: Transition to Modernity (Chair: Alexander Fischer)
Indrani Chatterjee, Disempowering Women and Becoming Modern? The Case from Fortress Bengal (I)
Daniel Schönpflug, Constitutional law and Diversity in the French Revolution: national and imperial perspectives (E)
Discussion

May 24th
9.30: Regulating Groups and Categorizing People (Chair: Tilmann Kulke)
Sumit Guha, The adjudication of religious headship (I)
Karl Shoemaker, Muslims as a legal category in European canon law (E)
Jovan Pešalj, The Habsburg Legislation Concerning Ottoman Migrants (E)
Discussion
11.30: Coffee Break
11.50 Law and Religious Groups pt. 1 (Chair: Paolo Sartori)
Ali Anooshahr, Muslims among non-Muslims: Creating the Islamic identity through law (14th century and onwards) (I)
Stephan Wendehorst, Catholics, Protestants and Jews: The Holy Roman Empire, Legal Pluralism and Religious Diversity (E)
12.50: Lunch Break
14.15 Law and Religious Groups pt. 2 (Chair: Paolo Sartori)
Blain Auer, The treatment of minority and non-Muslim communities under Muslim rule (1200-1400) (I)
Discussion
15.15: Tea Break
15.35: Customary law (Chair: Ebba Koch)
Najaf Haider, Customary Law in Mughal India (I)
Aparna Balachandran, The Law of Mamul: The History of Custom in Colonial and Pre-Colonial India (I)
Ada-Maria Kuskowski, Title TBA (E)
Discussion
May 25th
10am-4pm: Diversity in Vienna (city tour by foot and bus)

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