Anthropophagy as the Practice of Traveling Laws: Understanding German Legal Theory Elsewhere

Coordinator: Dr. Melanie Merlin de Andrade
Institution: Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main
Start Date: 11 February 2026
Meeting Rhythm: Biweekly/Monthly
Format: Hybrid (in-person at mpilhlt Z02 and online)
Time: 14:00–16:00 (Frankfurt time)

Rationale and Objectives

This reading group explores anthropophagy as a founding experience of Amerindian nations, whose practice embodied both a theory of translation and a metaphysics of becoming, self, and other. Following its unfolding as an artistic and philosophical concept of the Brazilian modernist avant-garde, the group applies the notion of anthropophagy to the traveling of legal theory. It focuses on how German legal thought has circulated and been transformed in distinct law-worlds—especially Brazil, India, and China.
The project builds upon the idea that law is a cultural phenomenon. Thus, legal theory travels not through neutral transmission, but through culturally situated acts of translation, appropriation, and creative recomposition. By employing anthropophagy as a methodological lens, the group seeks to move beyond conventional approaches to comparative law and toward an understanding of comparative jurisprudence as a dynamic and reciprocal process of theoretical transformation.

Structure and Schedule

Phase I – Anthropophagy: Experience, Metaphor, Concept, Method

• 11 February 2026 – What is Anthropophagy?
• 25 February 2026 – From transferring to emplacing: Comparative law and cultural translation

Phase II – German Legal Theories and Their Anthropophagic Afterlives

• 10 March 2026 – Robert Alexy Limited Inc.
• 7 April 2026 – Rudolf Smend and the Many Shapes of Integration
• 5 May 2026 – Carl Schmitt Industrie
• 16 June 2026 – Hans Kelsen’s Purifications

Phase III – Synthesis and Comparative Reflections

• 23 July 2026 – Roundtable: Anthropophagy and Translation in Global Legal Theory

The group aims to create a collaborative environment for cross-cultural research in legal theory, leading to a shared reading archive, working papers, and the preparation of a joint publication on Anthropophagy and Comparative Legal Thought.