Lucas Christopher Brang | Historian and China expert

I am a historian of international law and diplomacy in East Asia and an expert on contemporary Chinese political discourse.

In September 2024, I joined the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Freiburg as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer. Previously, I had been affiliated for more than a decade with the University of Cologne, where, among other positions, I was a Marie Skłodowska Curie research fellow of the European Union. I have also held visiting positions at several other institutions, including Columbia University in New York, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of Göttingen, and the University of Tokyo, where I was a JSPS postdoctoral research fellow.

Trained in both Chinese studies and law, I have published and lectured extensively on the intersection of constitutionalism and political ideology in contemporary China. I am particularly interested in the ways theoretical debates about the nature of law in a single-party state are informed by China’s changing geopolitical environment, and how they legitimate the assault on civil rights and the rule of law. My research on these questions has appeared in journals such as Global Constitutionalism, Modern China, and the International Journal of Constitutional Law.

In my historical work, I explore the evolution of international law – and its repercussions on national self-determination, economic inequality, and armed conflict – through a global and comparative lens. My current book project, tentatively titled “The rise and decline of Chinese legal internationalism (1900-1960),” develops a revisionist account of China’s forgotten role in shaping the norms and institutions of the modern international order.

Outside of academia, I have interned at the German Foreign Office in Berlin, where I worked on issues of cultural diplomacy, and freelanced as a translator from Chinese into German. If you are interested in my research or would like to get in touch for other reasons, feel free to reach out using the contact form.