Dr. Laura Petersen
CV
Laura Petersen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her research is cross-disciplinary, integrating approaches to jurisprudence with aesthetics. She has a particular research interest in Germany in the 20th Century. Currently, Laura is working on her postdoc project on law and art in the Weimar Republic at the University of Lucerne as part of the SNSF-funded project “Imagining Justice: Law, Politics and Popular Visual Culture in Weimar Germany”. Her PhD (2022) focused on the jurisprudence of restitution or Wiedergutmachung in Germany after WWII, arguing that legal, literary, artistic and memorial works are practices of restitution. It won the Harold Luntz Graduate Research Prize for the Best PhD in 2022 at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, and will be published as a monograph by Cambridge University Press (forthcoming). Laura also won the inaugural international writing prize Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature and Justice run by the University of Texas in 2021. Her paper was based on her research into a German lawyer, Dr Walter Schwarz, and his glossatorial writings. Born in Australia, Laura qualified to be a lawyer in Australia and is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (LLB, 1st Hons) (BA) (PhD) and FU Berlin (MA). She is currently Vice-President of the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia.
Research
Research Projects
Research Interests
law and the humanities (cultural legal studies)
law and literature
law and art / visual culture
jurisprudence and legal theory
law and society
restitution and justice after atrocity
German art, history and literature in 20th Century
Publications
- Petersen, L. (2023). The Power of an Image: How cartoons championed and criticised the Constitution in the Weimar Republic. Bulletin of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences, 27 (2), 48–52. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8289054
- Howe, S., & Petersen, L. (2022). Foreword: Law and Art in the Aftermath. Polémos. Journal of Law, Literature and Culture, 16 (2), 199–204. https://doi.org/10.1515/pol-2022-2013
- Petersen, L. (2021). An Ethos of Restitution: Walter Schwarz and the Gloss. Rapoport Center Working Paper Series, 2. Retrieved from https://law.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/31/2021/10/an-ethos-of-restitution_final-1.pdf
- Goldenfein, J., Petersen, L., & Trabsky, M. (2013). Curating a Museum of Legal Accidents. Griffith Law Review, 22 (1), 1–7. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2013.10854764
- Maget-Dominicé, A., & Petersen, L. (2023). Das Bourbaki-Panorama Luzern und die Erinnerungskultur in der öffentlichen Verwaltung in der Schweiz. In Davydov, Dimitrij (Ed.), Erinnerungskultur in der Verwaltungspraxis (pp. 417–439). Weisbaden: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-41939-4_19
- Petersen, L., & Reifarth, G. (2022). Behind the Words of Die Buribunken: Translators’ Comments. In Bikundo, Edwin & Tranter, Kieran (Eds.), Carl Schmitt and The Buribunks: Technology, Law, Literature (pp. 29–37). Abingdon: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324_9781003091066-4
- Petersen, L. (2021). Foot Notes. Reflections on Method and Form. In Chalmers, Shane & Pahuja, Sundhya (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities (pp. 138–147). Abingdon: Routledge.
- Petersen, L. (2011). We are story animals’: Aesopics in Holocaust Literature by Art Spiegelman and Yann Martel. In Reifarth, Gert & Morrissey Philip (Eds.), Aesopic Voices: Re-framing Truth through Concealed Ways of Presentation in the 20th and 21st Centuries (pp. 174–207). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Book Review: The Culture of the Case: Madness, Crime, and Justice in Modern German Art by Frederic J. Schwartz. (2024). Law, Culture and the Humanities, 20 (3), 635–637. https://doi.org/10.1177/17438721241248946
- Petersen, L. (2023). Encounters with Books from Other Disciplines: Jennifer L. Allen, Sustainable Utopias: The Art and Politics of Hope in Germany (Harvard University Press, 2022). International Journal of Law in Context, 19 (3), 427–430. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552323000150
- Petersen, L. (2022). Review: Lisa Stuckey, Forensische Verfahren in den zeitgenössichen Künste (De Gruyter, 2022). Kritische Justiz, 55 (4), 528–531. Retrieved from https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/0023-4834-2022-4/kj-kritische-justiz-jahrgang-55-2022-heft-4?page=1
Achievements
- Behind the Scenes: Craft, Method and the In/Visible Labours of Academic Work. (Panel) contribution, Critical Times, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, 2024
- Drawn into Law: Legal Cartoons in the Weimar Republic. (Panel) contribution, In the Thick of Images: Law, History and the Visual, University of Lucerne, Lucerne, 2024
- ‘Re-imagining the Republic? Cartoon art in the Weimar era. (Panel) contribution, Legal Imaginaries, Law Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia, University of Hong Kong, 2024
- Roundtable: Futures of Law and Humanities Education. Discussion contribution, Legal Imaginaries, Law Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia, University of Hong Kong, 2024
- Movement and Method: A Conversation. (Panel) contribution, Movement(s): Critical Times Summer School, University of Lucerne / ANU, Lucerne, 2023
- The Bourbaki Panorama: Encounters between Art and Law. Lecture, Law in Context - Early Career Workshop, Oxford University, Oxford, 2023
- “Everywhere the mystery of the corpse” The Art of Death in the Weimar Republic. (Panel) contribution, Visualising the Corpse in Art and Law, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 2023
- Making an Impression: Käthe Kollwitz and the Art of the Woodcut. (Panel) contribution, Deus ex Machina, QUT and Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia, Brisbane, 2023
- No One’s Places. Discussion contribution, Face to Face: The IILaH McKenzie Scholars’ Workshop, Institute for International Law and the Humanities, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2022
- A Legal Panorama? Lecture, Law and Love’ - Law, Literature and Humanities Conference of Australasia, Sunshine Coast University, Online, 2021
- Invited Remarks - Book Panel: ‘Desmond Manderson, Danse Macabre: Temporalities of Law in the Visual Arts’. (Panel) contribution, Book Panel Seminar: ‘Desmond Manderson, Danse Macabre: Temporalities of Law in the Visual Arts’, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2019
- Invited Remarks - Book Panel: Marett Leiboff, Theatrical Jurisprudence. (Panel) contribution, Book Panel Seminar - Marett Leiboff, Theatrical Jurisprudence, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, 2019
- Cultures of Legality in Weimar Germany, (Co-)Organiser, Lucerne, 2024
- In the Thick of Images: Law, History and the Visual, (Co-)Organiser, Lucerne, 2024
- Cultures of Legality in Weimar Germany, (Co-)Organiser, Lucerne, 2023
- Deus Ex Machina. Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia International Conference, Member of organisation committee, Brisbane, 2023
- Art and Conflict: Investigating Cross-Disciplinary Methodologies. Three-day international cross-disciplinary workshop, (Co-)Organiser, Melbourne, 2018
- Dissents and Dispositions. Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia - International Conference, Member of organisation committee, Melbourne, 2017
- Das Bourbaki Panorama - Guest Lecture (Teaching). Bild und Vertrag / Law and Contract (MA Art History subject) - Prof. Antoinette Maget Dominicé, Online, 2022
- ‘An Ethos of Restitution? Walter Schwarz and the Gloss. Presentation and Guest Lecture for the Wiseman Prize – University of Texas Law School, Rapoport Center for Human Rights, Online, 2021
- Signs of Law - Guest Lecture (Teaching). Law and Art – Representation and Critique (Law Subject) - Prof. Desmond Manderson and Prof. Tim Bonyhady, Online, 2020
- Layers of Law? Birkenau in the Reichstag. laboratorium lucernaiuris series, Lucerne, 2019
- Forms of redress after the Holocaust: encounters between art and law. Invited Lecture - Legal Intersections Research Centre, Wollongong, 2016
- Forms of Justice: Public Art - Guest Lecture (Teaching). Global Reconstructions of Justice (MA Criminology Subject) - Dr. Maria Elander, Melbourne, 2016
- Travel Grant, Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, 2024
- Harold Luntz Graduate Research Thesis Prize - Best PhD Thesis at Melbourne Law School 2022, University of Melbourne, 2023
- Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature and Justice, University of Texas, 2021
- DAAD Short Term Research Grant "Art Work, Law Work? Gerhard Richter’s Birkenau in the Reichstag", DAAD - German Academic Exchange Service, 2020
- Visiting Research Fellow - Funded, LMU - Munich, 2020
- Visiting Research Fellow - Funded, Institut für Juristische Grundlagen - Iucernaiuris, 2019
- Graduate Collaborative Research Award - "Art and Conflict: Investigating Cross-Disciplinary Methodologies", Universitas 21, 2018
- Visiting Research Fellow - Funded, University of Wollongong, 2016
- Australian Postgraduate Award for PhD Study, Federal Government of Australia, 2011
- DAAD Scholarship for Higher Study in Germany, DAAD - German Academic Exchange Service, 2007
