Professor Susanne Kastedt from the Griffith Criminology Institute has been awarded a prestigious 2019 Madgadalene-Schoch Fellowship from the University of Hamburg.
The fellowship commemorates the first woman awarded the permission of professorship of law in Germany in 1932.
During her two -month fellowship, Professor Karstedt will work with a group of criminologists at the University of Hamburgon comparative crime and justice issues.
“I will collaborate with Professor Florian Jessberger on the involvementof corporations in international crimes, a project led byProfessor Wim Huisman from Free University Amsterdam,’’ she said.
The fellowship holds a special place for Professor Karstedt, as in 2009 she edited a book – Legal Institutions and Collective Memories – which included an article on Schoch’s life.
In 1937, Schoch emigrated to the US for political reasons, where she continued her work. She earned her doctor-of-laws in 1920 from the University of Würzburg, her thesis being “English War Legislation Against Enemy Corporations” and then became a Research Fellow to Albert Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, a leading law professor of foreign and international law at the University of Hamburg, where he founded the Institute for Foreign Affairs in 1922.
“Magdalena Schoch was never asked or invited to return to Germany after the war,’’ Professor Karstedt said.
“Her achievements were forgotten by the community of lawyers, and never honoured by the University of Hamburg until recently, when a group of women started to campaign for her recognition in 2010.”
The award caps a stellar year for Professor Karstedt, who was appointed as a member of the jury of the Stockholm Prize in Criminology in 2018. The prize is awarded for outstanding achievements in criminological research or for the application of research results by practitioners for the reduction of crime and the advancements of human rights.