Professor Maksymilian Del Mar, BA LLB (Qld), PhD (Edinburgh), PhD (Lausanne), Solicitor (Qld)

Professor of Legal Theory

Email: m.delmar@qmul.ac.uk
Room Number: Mile End

Profile
Teaching
Research
Publications
Supervision
Public Engagement

Profile

Maksymilian (Maks) Del Mar is Professor of Legal Theory and the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Law. In 2020-21, he will be a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow.

Professor Del Mar came to Queen Mary in 2011. He did his undergraduate studies in law, literature and philosophy at the University of Queensland, including an honours thesis on Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller… After graduation, he served as a Judge’s Associate to the Honourable Justice Margaret White in the Supreme Court of Queensland, and qualified as a solicitor, combining work at Macrossans Lawyers with leading a legal professional ethics project at the Queensland Law Society. He then pursued doctoral studies in Scotland and Switzerland, graduating with a PhD in legal theory at the University of Edinburgh (2009), and a PhD in the philosophy of the social sciences at the University of Lausanne (2012).

Professor Del Mar has broad research interests in legal theory. Most recently, he is the author of Artefacts of Legal Inquiry: The Value of Imagination in Adjudication (Hart / Bloomsbury, 2020), which develops an account of the epistemic value of imagination for common law reasoning, including examining four case studies: fictions, metaphors, figures and scenarios. He has also recently edited The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities (with Simon Stern and Bernadette Meyler, 2020), and Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Law and Legal Reasoning (with Amalia Amaya, Hart / Bloomsbury, 2020).

Professor Del Mar is currently working on Neil MacCormick: A Scottish Jurisprudence, for Stanford University Press. The project includes a website, containing a timeline, full bibliography, and audio and video resources.

In addition to the focus on MacCormick, Professor Del Mar is developing research at the intersection of law, aesthetics and history. Interests include the theory and history of legal knowledge; rhetoric and the cognitive humanities; visual form and practices of seeing; and the relations between historiography and legal theory.

Professor Del Mar’s research has been funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Leverhulme Research Fellowship), the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Newton Fund, and the British Academy (Mid-Career Fellowship).

Professor Del Mar is committed to developing and nurturing multi- and inter-disciplinary research communities. As part of this commitment, he has served as: the Founding President of the Australian Legal Philosophy Students Association (2003-2005); the Founding Convenor of the Edinburgh Legal Theory Research Group (2006-2008); the President of the UK Branch of the International Association of Legal and Social Philosophy (UK IVR) (2013 to 2018); and the Founding Director of the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context (CLSGC) (2013 to 2019). He continues to serve as a Founding Co-Convenor of the International Network of Transnational Legal and Political Theory (since 2013). He was Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple from 2013 to 2016, and now continues as an Associate Academic Fellow.

Professor Del Mar serves as an Editor of the Law-in-Context series at Cambridge University Press, and is on the advisory board of a number of journals, including the International Journal of Law in Context and Jus Cogens: A Critical Journal of Philosophy of Law and Politics.

Professor Del Mar is also committed to teaching innovative courses, often in combination with his active research interests. He has taught/teaches a variety of courses at Queen Mary, including Contract Law, Jurisprudence & Legal Theory, and optional courses on Legal Reasoning in a Global Context and Law / Knowledge / Power: Past and Present in the Undergraduate degree, and courses on Common Law Reasoning, Visual Jurisprudence and Historical Jurisprudence in the LLM programme. He has a special interest in the value of the arts and humanities in legal pedagogy, including leading a project on the visual and dramatic arts in teaching legal reasoning, funded by the Westfield Fund for Enhancing Student Experience.

Undergraduate Teaching

LAW6021 Jurisprudence and Legal Theory, Semester 1 and 2
Legal Reasoning in a Global Context, Semester 1
Law, Knowledge, Power: Past and Present, Semester 2

Postgraduate Teaching

SOLM179 Common Law Reasoning, Semester 1
SOLM 180 Visual Jurisprudence, Semester 2
SOLM183 Historical Jurisprudence, Semester 2

Research

Professor Del Mar is currently working Neil MacCormick: A Scottish Jurisprudence, for Stanford University Press. This book focuses on the thought and political life of one of the twentieth century's most renowned jurists: Professor Sir Neil MacCormick (1941-2009). The book aims to fill two principal gaps in the literature on MacCormick: first, it locates MacCormick’s theoretical contribution within a distinct tradition of Scottish jurisprudence, which combined strands of analytical, realist, naturalist and socio-historical theories of law; and second, it illustrates and analyses the relationship between MacCormick’s theory and his political life, including detailing the extent of MacCormick’s contribution to politics in Scotland and Europe. In filling these gaps in the literature, the book aims to provide a sympathetically critical account of a jurist who offered, both in his theoretical and in his political interventions, an alternative political imaginary, eg of Europe as a post-sovereign commonwealth. Methodologically, the book is an exercise in historical jurisprudence, with a focus on two challenges: first, understanding the relationship between an individual’s theoretical contribution and the broader intellectual context; and second, understanding the relationship between theoretical work and the political context(s) in which it is expressed.

Professor Del Mar is also developing a number of projects at the intersection of law, aesthetics and history.

Professor Del Mar’s research interests have included:

General jurisprudence and the methodology of legal theory, including: historical jurisprudence, and the relations between legal theory and historiography; the fact-value distinction; legal and social normativity; institutional legal theory; visual jurisprudence; and the methods and concepts of law and humanities. Examples of work in this vein include: The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities (with Simon Stern and Bernadette Meyler); Law in Theory and History (co-edited with Michael Lobban, Hart / Bloomsbury); Contemporary Legal Theory: Series 1 and Series 2 (lead editor, six volumes, Ashgate); and New Waves in Philosophy of Law (sole editor, Palgrave).
Transnational, international and global legal theory, including: relations between law, power and knowledge in a global context; global historical jurisprudence; pluralist jurisprudence, including legal reasoning under conditions of legal pluralism; the role of metaphor in international customary law; and fragmentation in international law. Examples of work in this vein include: Law as Institutional Normative Order (co-edited with Zenon Bankowski, Ashgate); and Authority in Transnational Legal Theory (co-edited with Roger Cotterrell, Edward Elgar).
The theory and history of legal reasoning, including work on the role and value of imagination and emotion; on rhetorical and aesthetic dimensions of legal reasoning; and on the role of the arts and humanities in legal education. Examples of work include: Artefacts of Legal Inquiry: The Value of Imagination in Adjudication (Hart / Bloomsbury); Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Law and Legal Reasoning (co-edited with Amalia Amaya, Bloomsbury / Hart); Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice (co-edited with William Twining, Springer); The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life (co-edited with Zenon Bankowski, Ashgate); and The Arts and the Legal Academy (co-edited with Zenon Bankowski and Paul Maharg, Ashgate).

Publications

Download Dr Maks Del Mar's full CV [PDF 241KB]

Selected Publications

Legal Reasoning (Imagination, Emotion, Narrative)

Artefacts of Legal Inquiry: The Value of Imagination in Adjudication (Hart / Bloomsbury, 2020)
Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Legal Reasoning, co-edited with Amalia Amaya, Hart Publishing, 2020
‘New Horizons for the Study of the Legal Mind: Relating Virtue, Emotion and Imagination’, with Amalia Amaya, in Amaya and Del Mar (eds.), Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Legal Reasoning, Hart Publishing, 2020, 1-22
‘The Legal Imagination: Individual, Interactive and Communal’, in Amaya and Del Mar (eds.), Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Legal Reasoning, Hart Publishing, 2020, 235-260
‘Emotion Experiments in Legal Thought’ (2018) 5(2) CAL: Critical Analysis of Law, Special Issue on ‘New Literary Analysis of Law’
‘Educating the Legal Imagination’ (2018) Law & Method, Special Issue on Active Learning and Teaching in Legal Education
‘Common Virtue and the Perspectival Imagination: Adam Smith and Common Law Reasoning’, (2018) 9(1) Jurisprudence 58-70
‘Legal Reasoning in Pluralist Jurisprudence: The Practice of the Relational Imagination’, in Andrew Halpin and Nicole Roughan (eds.), In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence, Cambridge University Press, 40-63
‘Imagination in Legal Thought: Abilities, Devices and their Comparative History’ (2017) 12(2) The Journal of Comparative Law77-94
‘Metaphor in International Law: Language, Imagination and Normative Inquiry’ (2017) 86(2) Nordic Journal of International Law(Special Issue on ‘Language and International Law) 170-195
‘Imagining by Feeling: A Case for Compassion in Legal Reasoning’ (2017) 13(2) International Journal of Law in Context 143-157
‘The Role and Value of Coherence in Theories of Legal Reasoning’, (2017) 30(4) Ratio Juris 491-506
Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice, co-edited with William Twining, Springer, 2015
‘Introducing Fictions: Examples, Functions, Definitions and Evaluations’, in Del Mar and Twining (eds.), Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice, Springer, 2015, ix-xxxv
‘Legal Fictions and Legal Change in the Common Law Tradition’, in Del Mar and Twining (eds.), Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice, Springer, 2015, 225-254
‘The Forward-Looking Requirement of Formal Justice: Neil MacCormick on Consequential Reasoning’ (2015) 6(3) Jurisprudence 429-50
‘Judging Virtuously: Developing an Empathic Capacity for Perceptual Sensitivity’ (2014) 5(1) Jurisprudence 177-89
Special Issue on Legal Fictions (2013) 9(4) International Journal of Law in Context 437-519
Special Issue on Exemplary Narratives in Law and Legal Reasoning, co-edited with Randy Gordon (2013) 25(3) Law & Literature 331-482
‘Recovering Legal Fictions: An Introduction to the Special Issue’ (2013) 4 International Journal of Law in Context 437-441
‘Legal Fictions and Legal Change’ (2013) 4 International Journal of Law in Context 442-465
‘Exemplarity and Narrativity in the Common Law Tradition’ (2013) 25(3) Law & Literature 390- 427

Historical Jurisprudence

‘The Declamatory Tradition of Normative Inquiry: Towards an Aesthetic History of Legal and Political Thought’ (2020) 2 Jus Cogens: A Critical Journal of Philosophy of Law and Politics Online First
‘Global Historical Jurisprudence: Relating Law and Power in a Global Context’, in Jorge Zamora (ed.), Jurisprudence in a Globalised World, Edward Elgar, 2020, 100-126
‘Philosophical Analysis and Historical Inquiry: Theorising Normativity, Law and Legal Thought’, in Markus Dubber and Christopher Tomlins (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Legal Historical Research, Oxford University Press, 2018, 3-22
‘On the Hinges of History: For a Relational Legal Historiography’, in Christopher Tomlins and Justin Desautels-Stein (eds.), Contemporary Legal Thought, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 61-79
Law in Theory and History: New Essays on a Neglected Dialogue, co-edited with Michael Lobban, Hart Publishing, 2016
‘Beyond Universality and Particularity, Necessity and Contingency: On Collaboration between Legal Theory and Legal History’, in Del Mar and Lobban (eds.), Law in Theory and History, 2016, 22-38
‘Modelling Law Diachronically: Temporal Variability in Legal Theory’, in Del Mar and Lobban (eds.), Law in Theory and History: New Essays on a Neglected Dialogue, Hart, 2016, 108-126
Legal Theory and Legal History: Contemporary Legal Theory, Series 2, Volume 1, co-edited with Michael Lobban, Ashgate, 2014
‘What Does History Matter to Legal Epistemology?’, (2011) 5 Journal of the Philosophy of History 383-405

Global and Transnational Legal Theory

Authority in Transnational Legal Theory: Theorising Across Disciplinary Borders, co-edited with Roger Cotterrell, Edward Elgar, 2016
‘Legal Reasoning in Pluralist Jurisprudence: The Practice of the Relational Imagination’, in Andrew Halpin and Nicole Roughan (eds.), In Pursuit of Pluralist Jurisprudence, Cambridge University Press, 40-63
‘Introduction’, with Roger Cotterrell, for Cotterrell and Del Mar (eds.), Authority in Transnational Legal Theory, 2016, 1-23
‘Concluding Reflections: Transnational Futures of Authority’, with Roger Cotterrell, for Cotterrell and Del Mar (eds.), Authority in Transnational Legal Theory, 2016, 387-404
‘Imaginaries of Authority: Towards an Archaeology of Disagreement’, for Cotterrell and Del Mar (eds.), Authority in Transnational Legal Theory, 2016, 220-251
‘Images of Borders and the Politics and Legality of Identity’, with Zenon Bankowski, in Richard Nobles and David Schiff (eds.), Law, Society and Community: Socio-Legal Essays in Honour of Roger Cotterrell, Ashgate, 2014, 61-77
‘Beyond the State in and of Legal Theory’, in Sean Donlan and Lukas Heckendorn-Urscheler (eds.), Concepts of Law: Comparative, Jurisprudential, and Social Science Perspectives, Ashgate, 2014, 19-41
‘Legality as Relative Institutionalisation: MacCormick’s Diffusionism and Transnational Legal Theory’ (2014) 5(2) Transnational Legal Theory 177-217
‘The Moral Quality of Work in International Economic Institutions: Resisting Complacency’, with Oche Onazi (2008) 4(4) International Journal of Law in Context 337-372
‘Jurisprudence on the Frontline’ (2008) 5 European Journal of International Law 1095-1108
‘System Values and Understanding Legal Language’ (2008) 21(1) Leiden Journal of International Law 29-61

Legal Education

‘Ludic Legal Pedagogy: Mooting in Early Modern England’, in Subha Mukherji and Camilla Temple (eds), Law and Poetics in Early Modern England and Beyond, Palgrave, forthcoming
‘Educating the Legal Imagination’ (2018) Law & Method, Special Issue on Active Learning and Teaching in Legal Education
‘Learning How to Read a Case: Resources and Activities from the Visual and Dramatic Arts’, in B. von Klink and B. de Vries (eds.), Academic Learning in Law: Theoretical Positions, Teaching Experiments and Learning Experiences, Edward Elgar, 2016, 244-266
The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life: Beyond Text in Legal Education, co-edited with Zenon Bankowski, Ashgate, 2013
The Arts and the Legal Academy: Beyond Text in Legal Education, co-edited with Zenon Bankowski and Paul Maharg, Ashgate, 2013
‘The Education of Attention and Encounter in the Legal Academy’, in Bankowski and Del Mar (eds.), The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life: Beyond Text in Legal Education, Ashgate, 2013, 33-63
‘Legal Understanding and the Affective Imagination’, in Caroline Maughan and Paul Maharg (eds.), Affect and Legal Education, Surrey: Ashgate, 2011, 177-193
‘Beyond Text in Legal Education: Art, Ethics and the Carnegie Report’ (2010) 56 Loyola Law Review 101-144
‘Moral Education in Law Schools and Law Firms’ (2009) 59(2) Journal of Legal Education 298-304

Scottish Legal Theory and Neil MacCormick

‘The Role and Value of Coherence in Theories of Legal Reasoning’, (2017) 30(4) Ratio Juris491-506
‘The Forward-Looking Requirement of Formal Justice: Neil MacCormick on Consequential Reasoning’ (2015) 6(3) Jurisprudence 429-50
‘Learning from W.D. Lamont: Towards a Science of Situated Judgement’, in Ross Anderson, James Chalmers, and Johnnie MacLeod (eds.), Festschrift in Honour of the Tercentenary of the Regius Chair in Law, Glasgow Law School, Edinburgh: Avizandum, 2014, 105-124
‘The Works of Neil MacCormick: A Complete Bibliography and a Bibliographical Essay on Scottish Themes’, in Neil Walker (ed.), MacCormick’s Scotland, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012, 25-69
‘The Smithian Categorical Imperative: How MacCormick Smithified Kant’ (2012) 98(2) Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie 233-254
Law as Institutional Normative Order, co-edited with Zenon Bankowski, Ashgate, 2009

Methodology of Legal and Social Theory

‘The Natural and the Normative: The Distinction, not the Dichotomy between Facts and Values in a Broader Context’, in Sanne Taekema and Bart van Klink (eds.), The Development of Law: Creating Legal Facts and Norms Through Interdisciplinary Research, Edward Elgar, 2016, 224-241
‘Thinking in Images in Legal Theory’, in Del Mar and Michelon (eds.), The Anxiety of the Jurist: Legality, Exchange and Judgement, Ashgate, 2013, 43-67
‘Relational Jurisprudence: Vulnerability between Fact and Value’ (2012) 2 Law and Method 63-81
New Waves in Philosophy of Law, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
‘Marmor’s Social Conventions: The Limits of Practical Reason’ (2011) 41(3) Philosophy of the Social Sciences 420-445
‘Normativism, Anti-Normativism and Humanist Pragmatism’ (2010) 33(2-3) Human Studies 305-323
‘Legal Norms and Normativity’ (2007) 27(2) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 355-372

Supervision

Professor Del Mar welcomes proposals for supervision in legal theory. He is willing to consider any proposal in legal theory, but is likely to be most helpful as a supervisor if the proposal falls within his main areas of research:

Theories and histories of legal reasoning, including the role of imagination and emotion in adjudication, and the relevance of the theory and history of rhetoric for legal reasoning;
Law and humanities, including both law and literature, and law and visual studies, and especially cognitive theories of the humanities;
The theory and history of legal thought, especially in Scotland and England;
The theory and history of law in a transnational and global context; and
Historical jurisprudence, including relations between legal theory and historiography.

Professor Del Mar is currently supervising:

Ms Adela Halo, Ending the French Revolution: Germaine de Staël and the Birth of Liberalism in France, with Gareth Stedman-Jones, Schools of Law and History, 2015-2020
Ms Emma Raucent, Metaphor and Gender in European Human Rights Law, with Dr Eva Nanopoulos, Law, Queen Mary University of London, 2019-.

Public Engagement

Founding Director and Member of the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context (CLSGC)
Associate Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
Member of the Advisory Committee of the Centre for the History of Political Thought, Queen Mary University of London
Co-Convenor, International Network for Transnational Legal and Political Theory
Member of the Committee of the Centre for the History of Emotions, Queen Mary University of London

Areas of study

Study at Queen Mary

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