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

Professor of Legal Theory and Legal Humanities
Email: m.delmar@qmul.ac.ukRoom Number: Mile End
Profile
Maksymilian (Maks) Del Mar is Professor of Legal Theory and Legal Humanities in the Department of Law. He is currently the Department’s Director of Graduate Studies.
Professor Del Mar's educational background is multi-disciplinary. As an undergraduate, he studied law, literature, and philosophy, completing a BA (Hons I) and an LLB (Hons I) at the University of Queensland, Australia, including an honours thesis in philosophy and literature on the concept of beginnings in Italo Calvino ‘s If on a Winter's Night a Traveller… As a graduate, he completed two doctorates, one in law at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2009) and one in the philosophy of the social sciences at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (2012). While still in Australia, he qualified and worked as a solicitor, as well as serving as a Judge's Associate to the Honourable Justice Margaret White in the Supreme Court of Queensland and leading a professional ethics project at the Queensland Law Society.
Professor Del Mar has broad research interests in legal theory and legal humanities. They include, principally, interests in:
- The theory and history of common law reasoning, especially in ways that relate it to the theory and history of imagination, emotion, rhetoric, literature, and the arts;
- The history, historiography, methodology, and meta-theory of legal theory, with a particular focus on the Scottish tradition of jurisprudence; and
- The global context of legal reasoning and legal theory.
With respect to the first interest, Professor Del Mar has published Artefacts of Legal Inquiry: The Value of Imagination in Adjudication (500pp, Hart, 2020), which develops an account of the importance of imagination and emotion for common law reasoning. In broad terms, the book defends a view of common law reasoning as the inventive activity of embodied, affective, and social animals. It draws on a range of theoretical traditions, including rhetoric, the cognitive humanities, and the philosophy of mind. A short video interview about the book is available on Youtube. Other work has included papers on exemplarity and narrativity, on the rhetorical tradition of declamation, and on emotion experiments. A strand of this work has focused on the role and value of the arts in legal education, including papers on educating the legal imagination, and on drawing on the visual and dramatic arts to teach case law. Related editorial work has included: The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life (Ashgate, 2013, with Zenon Bankowski); The Arts and the Legal Academy (Ashgate, 2013, with Zenon Bankowski and Paul Maharg); Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice (Springer, 2015, with William Twining); Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Law and Legal Reasoning (Hart, 2020, with Amalia Amaya); and The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities, 2020, with Simon Stern and Bernadette Meyler).
With respect to the second interest, Professor Del Mar is currently working on a long-standing project on the life and work of one of Scotland’s most important twentieth-century jurists and public intellectuals: Neil MacCormick (1941-2009) for the Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory series. Other work has included papers on Adam Smith (with a particular focus on imagination and reasoning), on the role of images in the writing of legal theory, the fact-value problem, and a number of papers and chapters on the relations between legal theory and history. Related editorial work includes: Law as Institutional Normative Order (Routledge, 2009, with Zenon Bankowski); New Waves in Philosophy of Law (Palgrave, 2011); The Anxiety of the Jurist (Ashgate, 2013, with Claudio Michelon); and Law in Theory and History (Hart, 2016, with Michael Lobban).
With respect to the third interest, Professor Del Mar has been especially interested in theorising legal reasoning under conditions of pluralism, thinking about the importance of global history for jurisprudence, and reflecting on transnational authority. The work on MacCormick is also relevant here, given the importance of his institutional theory of law for transnational legal theory. Related editorial work includes: Authority in Transnational Legal Theory (Edward Elgar, 2016, with Roger Cotterrell).
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); the Founding Director of the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context (CLSGC) (2013 to 2019); and Founding Co-Convenor of the International Network of Transnational Legal and Political Theory (2013 to 2019).
Professor Del Mar serves as an Editor of two major interdisciplinary series: 1) the Law-in-Context series at Cambridge University Press, which is a long-standing series committed to contextual legal pedagogy and to theorising law in context; and 2) the Shaping Law series at Bloomsbury / Hart, which is a new series dedicated to exploring the relevance of the theory and history of aesthetics, rhetoric, poetics, and other traditions of ‘shaping’, for the theory and history of law. He is also the Founding Editor of a series of ‘Encounters with Books from Other Disciplines‘ in the International Journal of Law in Context.
Professor Del Mar 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 also taught an intensive course on Case Law and the Humanities at the University of Toronto. He has a special interest in the value of the dramatic and visual arts in teaching legal reasoning, having led a pilot project on this topic, 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
Research
At present, Professor Del Mar is working on his second monograph: Neil MacCormick: Reading with Character, for Stanford University Press, as part of the Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory series. The project includes a website, containing a timeline, full bibliography, and audio and video resources. This project connects to Professor Del Mar’s longstanding interests in the relations between the theory and history of law; intellectual history and the importance of biography; the relevance of literary and rhetorical theory and history for the historiography of legal thought; and, more specifically, the neglected legacy of the Scottish tradition of jurisprudence.
In keeping with his interest in common law reasoning and its relations to the humanities, Professor Del Mar is developing a number of projects. One is a collaborative project, with Simon Stern, on ‘Cognitive Legal Humanities’, which will culminate in a special issue of CAL: Critical Analysis of Law. Further current research interests are:
- Kinesic intelligence in common law reasoning;
- Emotions in common law reasoning;
- The value of the history of rhetoric for understanding case law; and
- The value of the history of comedy for the theory and history of common law reasoning.
Related work is also in progress on legal pedagogy, including a special issue of the International Journal of Law in Context on ‘Contextual Legal Pedagogy’, and on ‘playful legal pedagogies’.
Professor Del Mar also retains an interest in global dimensions of legal reasoning and legal theory and is especially interested in exploring the relevance of global legal history for global legal theory, including the prospects for teaching jurisprudence in a global context, and the importance of writing colonial, imperial, and more broadly, transnational theories and histories of legal reasoning.
Publications
Download Professor Maks Del Mar's full CV [PDF 216KB]
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 and legal humanities. He is willing to consider any proposal in these fields, but is likely to be most helpful as a supervisor if the proposal falls within his main areas of research. Proposals in the following broad areas would be especially welcome:
- The theory and history of common law reasoning, especially its links to aesthetics, rhetoric, and poetics.
- Relations between law and cultural theory and history (including literature and the visual arts).
- The history and historiography of legal philosophy, and the importance of, and prospects for, historical jurisprudence.
- The theory and history of law in a global context.
- The tradition of Scottish jurisprudence, especially in and since the 18th century.
Professor Del Mar is currently supervising:
- Luiza Tavares da Motta, Tense and Tensions between Law, Literature and Temporality, with Dr Tanzil Chowdhury, Law, 2021-
- Gabrielle Schwarzmann, Trauma, Pain and Shame: Recovering the Experiences of Non-Elite Women in Late Medieval English Legal Culture, with Professor Miri Rubin, 2021-
Recently completed students:
- 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
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
Related news
- Professor Maks Del Mar joins the Editorial Board of Law & Literature
23 June 2022 - Maks Del Mar’s book, Artefacts of Legal Inquiry, wins the IVR’s Commendation for Excellence
22 June 2022 - Professor Maks Del Mar to deliver Inaugural UK IVR MacCormick Lecture
20 January 2022 - Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy holds Symposium on Maks Del Mar’s Artefacts of Legal Inquiry
12 November 2021 - Scholarly Blog on Imagination hosts a Symposium on Professor Del Mar’s book
10 May 2021 - Two Queen Mary PhD students win prestigious LAHP studentships
2 June 2020 - Professor Maksymilian Del Mar awarded British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship
18 May 2020 - New book explores the role of imagination in legal reasoning
9 April 2020 - Professor Maksymilian Del Mar publishes monograph on imagination in legal reasoning
26 February 2020 - Professor Maks Del Mar publishes collection on Virtue, Emotion and Imagination in Law and Legal Reasoning
6 February 2020 - Prof. Maks Del Mar co-edits The Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities
8 January 2020 - Prof. Maksymilian Del Mar to visit the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto as a Distinguished Visitor
8 November 2019 - Prof. Maksymilian Del Mar to speak in Berlin at Multiple Legalities conference
8 November 2019 - Dr Del Mar joins Editorial Board of Jus Cogens
25 February 2019 - How can digital technologies help us to improve the way we communicate?
21 December 2018 - Dr Maks Del Mar to speak at conference on Law and Poetics in Cambridge
1 May 2018 - Dr Maks Del Mar joins the International Editorial Board of the International Journal of Law in Context.
8 February 2018 - Dr Maks Del Mar becomes Co-Editor of the Law in Context series at Cambridge University Press
1 November 2017 - Dr Maks Del Mar to deliver lecture in Salzburg
24 October 2017 - Dr Maks Del Mar gives seminar at the Aesthetics Research Centre
24 October 2017 - Dr Maks Del Mar to deliver Keynote Lecture at Joint Conference of the Netherlands Association of Legal Philosophy and the Netherlands Association of the Sociology of Law
13 October 2017 - Dr Maks Del Mar speaks in Paris in honour of Geoffrey Samuel
7 December 2016 - Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context holds first International Dialogue with Erasmus Law School
1 November 2016 - Dr Maks Del Mar delivers Inner Temple lecture on Legal Reasoning in the Common Law Tradition
21 October 2016 - Dr Maks Del Mar to lecture in Poland
21 October 2016 - New book published: 'Law in Theory and History: New Essays on a Neglected Dialogue' co-edited by Dr Maks Del Mar and Professor Michael Lobban
18 October 2016 - New book published: 'Authority in Transnational Legal Theory: Theorising Across Disciplines' co-edited by Professor Roger Cotterrell and Dr Maks Del Mar
4 October 2016 - Dr Maks Del Mar to lecture in Colombia and Mexico
10 May 2016 - First Year PhD Student Dan Davison-Vecchione accepted on summer school program at Cornell University
11 April 2016 - Dr Maks Del Mar speaks on legal fictions at Oxford
15 March 2016 - Dr Maks Del Mar and Professor Amalia Amaya win British Academy / Newton Grant
9 February 2016 - Dr Del Mar to speak on Neil MacCormick at St. Andrews
17 September 2015 - Roger Cotterrell and Maks Del Mar convene a workshop in Washington for The International Association of Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR)
5 August 2015 - Dr Del Mar speaks on Legal Theory in Singapore and Harvard
23 June 2015 - Dr Maks Del Mar published collection on 'Legal Fictions in Theory and Practice'
18 March 2015 - Dr Del Mar presents two papers on Neil MacCormick in Edinburgh
4 March 2015 - Professor Cotterrell and Dr Del Mar present at conference for the launch of the National University of Singapore Centre for Legal Theory
19 February 2015 - QMUL publishes archive dedicated to life and works of Professor Sir Neil MacCormick
30 October 2014 - Dr Del Mar edits new three-volume series on Contemporary Legal Theory
12 September 2014 - Roger Cotterrell and Maks Del Mar to present on Transnational Authority in Paris
12 August 2014 - Dr Del Mar invited to speak to the Legal Theory Group of the National University of Singapore
31 July 2014 - Dr Maksymilian Del Mar invited to speak at Harvard Law School
17 July 2014 - Dr Del Mar to present on legal reasoning at UCL
7 May 2014 - Dr Del Mar to Chair Agora on International Law and Linguistics
28 March 2014 - Dr Del Mar to speak on legal reasoning in Edinburgh
26 March 2014 - Law PhD students benefit as Queen Mary joins the Association of Transnational Law Schools
19 March 2014 - Dr Del Mar invited to speak on MacCormick in London and Cambridge
6 March 2014 - Dr Maks Del Mar invited to join two editorial boards
22 January 2014 - Dr Maks Del Mar to speak at the Ankara Bar Association’s 8th International Law Congress
8 January 2014 - Dr Maksymilian Del Mar awarded prestigious fellowship
27 October 2013