Laura Petersen

Laura Petersen is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Lucerne's Faculty of Law, Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies (lucernaiuris), conducting SNSF-funded research on law and visual culture in Weimar Germany.

Education:

• PhD in Law, University of Melbourne (2022)
• MA, Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin)
• LLB (1st Class Honors) and BA, University of Melbourne

Her research integrates jurisprudence with aesthetics, focusing on German legal history across the Weimar Republic and post-WWII periods. She examines how legal, literary, artistic, and memorial practices collectively constitute restitution (Wiedergutmachung), with current work analyzing popular visual culture's role in shaping legal concepts of justice during Germany's democratic experiment.

Scientific Awards:

• Harold Luntz Graduate Research Prize for Best PhD (2022)
• Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature and Justice (2021)

Funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation for her Weimar Germany project, Petersen serves as Vice-President of the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia. Her doctoral thesis will be published by Cambridge University Press.

She operates within the Institute for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies (lucernaiuris) and maintains active roles in international scholarly networks focused on law's intersections with humanities disciplines.