I am a Research Scientist for „law and culture“ at the University of Luxembourg and Associated Member at the Centre Georg Simmel at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (affiliations and fellowships >>).
My research focuses on the relationship between the subject and the institutional system, on the juridical and linguistic foundations of subjectivity and culture, the role of literature and aesthetics in culture and law, as well as, and specifically, on new technologies, such as blockchain technology, and their impact on traditional conceptions of subjectivity, institution and law.
Having obtained a Master’s degree at the Sorbonne, I worked as a trilingual translator in a law firm in Paris. During my time at the law firm I received the offer to translate Le Désir politique de Dieu by Pierre Legendre. Once the translation was finished, I resumed my academic path and wrote a doctoral thesis on the relationship between law and literature. After a teaching assignment at Duke University in the United States, I finished my PhD at the University of Luxembourg and the University Paris-Sorbonne in 2015.
full CV >>
Research interests
In my research, I am particularly guided by the following questions:
- How does the individual become subject? To what extent is it entangled in rigid norm structures and to what extent can it break free from them, possibly even influence them? What role do language, aesthetics and law play in this?
- How are legal and cultural binding paradigms changing due to increasing trans- and international networks, and not least due to decentralisation efforts?
- What impact does digitalisation have on social dynamics and the institutional structure of our society? How does the striving for ever more autonomous, virtually based – and thus disembodied – forms of life affect the foundations of our community and concepts of subjectivity? Does this lead to a dissolution of social contexts or do new forms of community and new social ties emerge?
- What are the ideological foundations and cultural and legal implications of blockchain technology? To what extent will it – with the proliferation of legal tech – actually change the legal landscape? What does its quest for „decentralised justice“ and „self-sovereign identity“ mean for the traditional functioning and foundations of our legal and cultural system?
- What role does the body, materiality, nature play in all this?
Publications (selection)
- « Göttliche Protokolle, Bitcoin-Jünger und schattenhafte Herrscher: Über die religiösen Anwandlungen und ideologischen Verstrickungen der Blockchain-Technologie », in: Jahrbuch für Technikphilosophie, Nomos-Verlag 2022, p. 177-194.
- « Plateformes de règlement de litiges décentralisées : vers ‚une justice plus juste‘ ? », in: Dalloz Revue IP / IT 01/2021, p.13-16.
- « Blockchain matters – lex cryptographica and the displacement of legal symbolics and imaginaries », Respondents: Jean Lassègue & Pierre Musso, Law & Critique, 2022.
- « Digitalisierung und soziale Distanz. Körperliche Präsenz als Kern demokratischer Repräsentation », Die politische Meinung, Nr. 564, Sept-Okt. 2020, p. 69-73.
- Numérique : avec le Covid-19, « la présence physique s’est avérée soudainement porteuse d’une dimension politique », Le Monde, 20.11.2020.
- « Corona und die krisenhafte Wiederkehr des Verdrängten », Zeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie, ZKph 2020/2, p.111-122.
- « Débattons enfin de la ‘blockchain’ », Le Monde, 4.05.2019
- « La technologie blockchain et la promesse crypto-divine d’en finir avec les tiers », Études digitales. Religiosité technologique, II, Classiques Garnier 2019, p. 33-52.
Complete list of publications >>
News
Lecture held within the framework of the conference The Digital Divide on September 15, 2022 at Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, Berlin.
Keynote held within the framework of the conference The Digital Divide on September 15, 2022 at Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy, Berlin. The keynote is followed by a Q&A with Katrin Becker.