Podgòrecki Prize 2012: Fatima Kastner and Stefan Larsson

Ex aequo winners of the Adam Podgòrecki Prize 2012
are Fatima Kastner and Stefan Larsson

Fatima Kastner. Fatima has had an international education. She has been studied  law, philosophy and sociology at the university of Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in the London school of Economics and the Collège international de philosophie (Paris). She has a strong interest in theory related to sociology and philosophy of law. In her PhD, « Semantics of Powerlessness : Systems Theory and Deconstruction. On the primacy of Paradoxy in Luhmann’s System theory and Derrida’s Deconstruction with special reference to their autological construction of law », she has performed the extremely demanding task to confront Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory with Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction. She gives a well-structured, informative and expertly condensed insight into the most complex theoretical systems of two of the leading thinkers of the 20th century , working out the epistemological paradoxes. She is one of the editors of Niklas Luhmann « Law and Social System » in the English translation made by Klaus Ziegert. She has also another field of research entitled  Law and society in transition : on the normative integration of world society, which will be her second doctorate. She analyzes the global proliferation of truth and reconciliation commissions and the trans-national shift from retributive to restorative justice by focusing on some questions as, for instance : why are truth and reconciliation commissions used in highly diverse settings of conflicts with marked ethnical, cultural, social and political difference. She has written a number of articles in high standing journals.

Stefan Larsson. Stefan has a double training in law and sociology and a phD in sociology of law. He is a researcher with a strong interest in internet in the question of norms with regard to the digitalisation of society. His Ph D is entitled  « Metaphors and Norms. Understanding copyright law in a digital society » (Published in University of Lund studies of sociology of law, 38, University of Lund, 2011). He is interested in a very original question: the confrontation of the legal norms on copyright with the social  norms strength of unauthorized file sharing. Despite the decrease of unauthorized file-sharing there is always a gap between legal norms and socials norms of copyright. It is related to the fact that digitalization of society not only affects norm but also our language and mind. he studies the way digitalization affects our language and mind through metaphor constructed from underlying conception. His purpose is to understand how the digitalization of society affects the norms but also the language and mind, using the concept of metaphor in relation to law. This is a very innovative and interesting field for sociology of law. He has written a wide range of articles in high standing journals. He is strongly involved in different programs related to internet and digitalization in relation with norms, and sociology of law. as Lund university Internet Institut, that works for a multidisciplinary approach on digitalisation.

(Source: Prize Committee 2012)


This page last updated 6 April 2015