Personal Profile
Christian Volk is Professor of Political Theory at the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since August 2020. From 2016 to 2020, he chaired the research area "Politics and Law" at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science at Free University Berlin. His research focuses on political theory and philosophy, democratic and social theory, and legal and constitutional theory. Since 2018, he has been leading a research group funded by the European Research Council entitled "Protest and Order. Democratic theory, contentious politics, and the changing shape of western democracies." (ERC starting grant)
Christian Volk studied political science, economics, and economic and social history at RWTH Aachen University (Germany). Following research stays at Yale University and the New School for Social Research, he received his doctorate (summa cum laude) from RWTH Aachen University in 2010 with a thesis on the concept of law in Hannah Arendt's works. In October 2013, the thesis was awarded as an outstanding work in the humanities and social sciences by the program "Geisteswissenschaften International". From 2011 to 2015 he managed the DFG-funded research project "The concept of sovereignty in the transnational constellation". Previously he worked as a Postdoc and scientific coordinator for the research project "international dissidence" at Goethe University Frankfurt (2010-2011) and at the DFG research training group "constitution beyond the state" at HU Berlin (2009-2010).
Christian Volk has researched and taught at the European Inter-University Centre (Venice/Italy), Radzyner School of Law (Israel), University of Colorado (Boulder/USA), and Goethe University Frankfurt, among others.