The Law of Cohabitation: Law, Society, and Groundless Life in Europe (LAW-DS-LAWCOH-26)
LAW-DS-LAWCOH-26
| Department |
LAW |
| Course category |
LAW Intensive Seminar - 3 credits |
| Course type |
Seminar |
| Academic year |
2026-2027 |
| Term |
2ND TERM |
| Credits |
3 (EUI Law credits) |
| Professors |
|
| Contact |
Law Department administration,
|
| Sessions |
09/02/2027 10:00-12:00 @ Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
09/02/2027 14:00-16:00 @ Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
23/02/2027 10:00-12:00 @ Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
23/02/2027 14:00-16:00 @ Sala degli Stemmi, Villa Salviati
|
| Reading list |
Link
|
| Enrolment info |
Contact lawadmin@eui.eu for enrolment details. |
Description
The time is ripe to realise that postwar Europe construction and its law were not just an attempt to rescue the Nation-State (Milward). It was also an effort to ensure a form of coexistence and sociality based on the assumption that the liberal democracy and ‘embedded capitalism’ would generate consensus, peace of mind and security (Habermas). This effort has clearly failed. Social coexistence is being threatened by various forms of economic, social, and state violence as well as geo-ecological, techno-social, and psycho-social catastrophes such as climate change, AI revolution, or the massive return of identitarian and exclusionary discourses. This context generates a sense of lost belonging and ‘groundlessness’, and it undermines the conditions of coexistence with others in society and with non-humans on earth. Is this process irreversible? This short seminar is an invitation to collectively reflect on this issue and to share cases and ideas about failed, damaged, or reframed forms of cohabiting in today’s Europe. Are there concepts, resources, and practices we can draw upon to develop a renewed and broadened conception of cohabitation? Are we able to develop a vision or principles for a ‘European law of cohabitation’? This involves inquiring into the specific infrastructural, environmental, and ideological conditions that make this development desirable, yet hard to achieve. To help explore this issue, the seminar will bring together theoretical readings on the notion of cohabitation, legal cases relating to local issues of cohabitation, and social sciences materials on forms of cohabitation in European societies and beyond.
Programme
1. ‘Living together’ in European Society
2. Cohabitation: Theory and Critique
3. The city and its suburbs
4. The forest and the border
5. Co-inhabiting with/in Law?
First, Second & Third Term: registration from 21 to 25 September 2026.
Page last updated on 28 September 2026