Culture, Rights, Identity

This is your last chance to apply for this year’s Summer Institute. There are just twenty-four hours left before our deadline expires. If you have not applied yet, no reason to worry though. Just head to the applications page, fill in the form, attach the necessary documents, and you are good to go.

Dr. Martin Zeilinger

We are proud to announce that Martin Zeilinger will  join the Summer Institute as a faculty member, sharing his expertise in the field of law and culture with our students in the introductory workshop “The Complex Relation between Culture and Law: Methods, Concepts, and Approaches.”

Martin Zeilinger holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto. In 2009, he was a participant at the first Osnabrück Summer School on the Cultural Study of Law. There, he met Prof. Rosemary Coombe, Canada Research Chair in Law, Communication and Culture, with whom he has collaborated ever since. This year, Dr. Zeilinger was awarded a prestigious 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at York University in Toronto, where he will work with Prof. Coombe. His postdoctoral project, entitled “Cultural Appropriation in the Digital Era: Intellectual Property Policy and Collaborative Creativity in Audiovisual Sampling and Remixing,” is the continuation of collaborative research that he began with Prof. Coombe at the Osnabrück Summer Institute.

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The Summer Institute will take place in a city rich with history and culture. Osnabrück had its beginning as a humble mission on the banks of the River Hase in 780. By 1002, the Bishop of Osnabrück gained the right to mint currency  and collect custom fees.

Trade and culture flourished as Osnabrück became a member of the Hanseatic League in 1412  and thus opened itself to the world. Indeed by 1572, the city was described in volumes as the “noblest” and “most renown” cities of the land (including these illustrations, which already show landmarks such as St. Peter’s Cathedral, which still stand today).

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Prof. Helle Porsdam

We are happy to announce officially that Professor Helle Porsdam (University of Copenhagen) will be coming to Osnabrück in August to convene the workshop “From Human Rights to Civil Rights to Cultural Rights: Rights Talk in Transatlantic and Global Perspective” together with Prof. Cindy Holder.

Helle Porsdam is a Professor of American Studies and American History at the SAXO Institute at the University of Copenhagen. Her primary research interests are focused on American culture and intellectual history, the role of law in American history and culture, American constitutionalism, the relationship between law and politics in the US and Europe, the cultural role of human rights, and law and humanities. She is the project leader of CULTIVATE, a three-year research collaboration between the universities of Copenhagen, Uppsala, London, Utrecht and Iceland and part of the HERA Joint Research Programme for the theme “Humanities as a Source of Creativity and Innovation” (www.cultivateproject.dk).

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