Christiane U. Birr

PD Dr. Christiane U. Birr is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Goethe University Frankfurt, specializing in Legal History, Canon Law, and Colonial Law. Since 2013, she has coordinated the academy project The School of Salamanca: A Digital Source Collection and a Dictionary of Its Legal and Political Language at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt. Her research bridges early modern scholasticism with global normative knowledge production through digital humanities.

• Education: Law at University of Würzburg (First State Exam 1994, Second State Exam 1996), Doctorate 2000, Habilitation 2006.
• Positions: Assistant at University of Würzburg (2000-2002), Research Fellow at LMU Munich (2003-2005), Senior Academic Councillor at LMU Munich (2007-2009), Research Associate at Max Planck Institute since 2009.

Her work explores Spanish late scholasticism, early modern canon law, and colonial legal frameworks, with a focus on glocalization of normative knowledge and Atlantic legal discourses. Recent publications analyze digital humanities methodologies in legal historical research and the global impact of the School of Salamanca.

Scientific awards include the Bavarian Habilitation Prize (2002) for her project on Rights in the Flow of Time. She has contributed extensively to interdisciplinary collaborations, particularly with Thomas Duve and José Luis Egío García, and is a leading voice in transnational legal history and early modern Iberian studies.