Current positions:
since January 2025: tenure-track researcher, Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna
January 2025-December 2027: Affiliate Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main
Post-doctoral positions:
October 2020-December 2024: researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main, Legal Transfer in the Common Law World research field; research projects: "Philanthropy, Administration, and the Law in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire" e "Policing Mobility through Protection: Social Knowledge and Legal Practices in the Nineteenth-Century British Empire"
2020: fellow at the Edith Saurer Fonds, Vienna; book project: "Towards a Global Conceptual History from Below: The Political Thought of Thomas Spence (1750-1814)"
2019-2020: fellow at the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Turin; research project: "Thought and Administration in the British Empire: Lord Elgin and colonial constitutional orders"
Education:
2015-2018: PhD student at the Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna. Final dissertation: The Missionaries of Order: Law, Sovereignty and Government in the Political Thought of the Administrators of the British Empire (c. 1750-1900). Tutor: Prof. Raffaele Laudani; final assessment: cum laude
2012-2015: Master's Degree in History, University of Bologna. Final dissertation: The Political Thought of Thomas Spence. Supervisor: Prof. Raffaele Laudani; Co-Supervisor: Prof.ssa Francesca Sofia. Mark: 110/110 cum laude
2009-2012: Bachelor's Degree in History, University of Bologna. Final dissertation: Politics and Society in the Work of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. Supervisor: Prof. Carlo Galli; Co-Supervisor: Prof. Raffaele Laudani. Mark: 110/110 cum laude
International Research Activity:
Spring 2024: Max Planck Law exchange programme at the National University of Singapore
Spring 2019: Research assistant at the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam (project: "West African Consumption Patterns, 1630-1860")
Fall 2017: visiting researcher, University of Oxford
Spring 2017: visiting researcher, World History Center, University of Pittsburgh
Fall 2016: visiting researcher, King's College London
Fall 2014: visiting researcher, King's College London
Teaching Activities:
April 2021-December 2024: lecturer at the Law Faculty of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, for the Legal Transfer in the Common Law World Seminar
July 2024: "Legal transfer in the common law world" teaching session, Max Planck Summer Academy for Legal History, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
May 2024: "The historical approach" session at the Max Planck Law event "Approaches to Legal Research", Harnack Haus, Berlin
July 2023: "How to write a legal biography" teaching session, Max Planck Summer Academy for Legal History, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
September 2022: "Introduction to the History of Modern Political Thought" crash course, Master's Degree in Global Cultures, University of Bologna
February-March 2022: Adjunct Professor for the course "Atlantic and Global History of Modern Political Concepts", Master's Degree in Global Cultures, University of Bologna
September 2021: "Introduction to the History of Modern Political Thought" crash course, Master's Degree in Global Cultures, University of Bologna
September 2020: "Introduction to the History of Modern Political Thought" crash course, Master's Degree in Global Cultures, University of Bologna
September 2019: "Introduction to the History of Modern Political Thought" crash course, Master's Degree in Global Cultures, University of Bologna
May-June 2016: Teaching Assistant for the international exchange programme "Duke in Bologna"
Seminar and conference organization:
April 2021-December 2024: co-organizer and convenor of the Legal Transfer in the Common Law World Research Seminar, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Francoforte sul Meno
June 2024: co-organizer of the international workshop "Protestant Missions and Legal Dynamics in the British Empire", Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
May 2023: co-organizer of the international workshop "Biographies in the Global Circulation of Knowledge", Queen Mary, University of London
March 2018: co-organizer of the graduate conference “Rethinking the History of Modern Political Concepts: Race and Division of Labour in Global Western Empires, 1791-1888”, Institute of the Humanities and Global Cultures, University of Virginia, funded by the Academy of Global Humanities and Critical Theory
Participation in and presentations at conferences, seminars, and summer schools:
March 2025: discussant at the “Common law transfer and Indian legal history” panel, Deutsche Botschaft, New Delhi (20/03/2025); discussant at the “Law, History, and Legal History” panel, NALSAR Law School, Hyderabad (24/03/2025); writing workshop moderator at the international conference “Contours of Legal History in India: Pedagogy and Research”, National Law School of India / Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Bangalore (28/03/2025)
October 2024: Zurich Global and Extra-European History Research Colloquium, ETH-UZH Zurich (invited speaker)
June 2024: conference on missions, missionaries legal dynamics in the British Empire, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
May 2024: "Writing the history of empires" workshop, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory-Philipps-Universität Marburg
November 2023: conference on abolitionist and anti-slavery movements, University of Bochum
October 2023: American Society for Legal History annual conference, Philadelphia
April 2023: "Colonial legal biography" workshop, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
April 2023: Seminario di storia del diritto e del pensiero giuridico, University of Padova (invited speaker)
April 2023: European Social Science History Conference, University of Gothenburg
March 2023: presentation on "Poverty and the law", Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, Munich (invited speaker)
November 2022: American Society for Legal History annual conference, Chicago
August 2022: European Society for the History of Political Thought Conference, University of Helsinki
June 2022: "Legal Histories of Empires" conference, University of Maynooth
June 2022: Early Career Research Seminar in the History of Political Ideas, Institute of Historical Research, London (invited speaker)
June 2022: "Writing the history of empires" workshop, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory-Philipps-Universität Marburg
March 2022: "Freedom, Justice and Esteem: Perspectives from an Unconditional Basic Income" international workshop, Technische Universität Braunschweig (invited speaker)
January 2022: Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Conference, University of Oxford
September 2021: International Society for Intellectual History conference on "Coerced Labour in the Early Modern World (1500-1800)"
April 2021: Common Law Research Seminar, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
January 2021: online conference on "English Law and Colonial Connections: Histories, Parallels, and Influences", Northumbria University-University of Lodz
January 2020: Common Law Research Seminar, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History
August 2019: DAAD-Cambridge Hub Conference on “Imperial Times”, University of Cambridge (invited speaker)
July 2019: International Conference on Romanticism, Manchester
June 2019: Annual London Graduate Conference in the History of Political Thought on "Progress and Decline in the History of Political Thought", UCL-Queen Mary University of London
July 2018: "Legal Histories and Empires" conference, University of the West Indies, Barbados
June 2018: International Society for Intellectual History annual conference, University of St. Andrews
June 2017: Summer school in Global Studies and Critical Theory (4th edition), University of Bologna
June 2017: 10th annual Cambridge graduate conference in Political Thought and Intellectual History, University of Cambridge
October 2016: International graduate conference in Transatlantic History, University of Texas at Arlington
September 2016: London summer school in Intellectual History, UCL-Queen Mary, University of London
June 2016: Summer school in Global Studies and Critical Theory (3rd edition), University of Bologna
June 2015: Summer school in Global Studies and Critical Theory (2nd edition), University of Bologna
November 2014: international symposium on "Bicentennial Perspectives on Thomas Spence", Université de Toulouse 2 Jean Jaurès
June 2014: Summer school in Global Studies and Critical Theory, University of Bologna
Awards and fellowships:
September 2024: honorable mention of the Society for Italian Historical Studies for the article "The Strange Case of Dr Giustiniani and Mr. Hirsch: The Incomplete History of an Imposture", Quaderni storici
December 2021: third prize of the Premio Internazionale Domenico Losurdo for the book I missionari dell’ordine: Pensiero e amministrazione nell’Impero britannico (sec. XVIII-XIX)
2020: award for the completion of book project, Edith Saurer Fonds, Vienna
2019: post-doctoral fellowship, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Turin
February 2019: 2018 Atlantic Studies Early Career Essay Prize for the article "All Shall Be Happy by Land and by Sea: Thomas Spence as an Atlantic Thinker", Atlantic Studies: Global Currents
2016: study abroad fellowship "Marco Polo", University of Bologna
2015: award for the best Master dissertation in the history of political thought for the dissertation Il pensiero politico di Thomas Spence, Associazione di teoria politica Lorella Cedroni, University of Rome La Sapienza
2014: study abroad fellowship "Tesi all'estero", University of Bologna
Scientific qualifications:
Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale (ASN) for "seconda fascia" (Associate Professor, 2022-2031) in the fields: 14/B1 (History of Political Thought and Institutions) and 11/A2 (Modern History)
Affiliations:
Società Italiana delle Storiche
American Society for Legal History
Accepted and forthcoming publications:
- [JOURNAL ARTICLE] Cazzola, M., “Towards a Conceptual History of Radical Philanthropy: Spenceanism and the Ragged-Trousered Lovers of Mankind (Imperial Britain, c.1790-1820)”, The Journal of the History of Ideas
- [BOOK CHAPTER] Cazzola, M., “Missionary, Foreigner and Legal Actor: The Global Legal Biography of Louis Giustiniani (1794-1855)”, in S. Vogenauer (ed.), Colonial Legal Biography. Frankfurt Am Main: Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory
- [BOOK CHAPTER] Cazzola, M., “‘Friends to Order and Public Good’: London Philanthropists and the Enchaining Mission (c. 1790-1820)”, in A. Luna-Fabritius, E. Benner, and A. Clerici (eds.), In Search of the Common Good in the History of Political Thought. Leiden: Brill
