Law and Political Imagination: The Perspective of Paul Kahn

A. A Double Perspective The German Law Journal and Paul Kahn are no strangers to one another. In 2020, the Journal published an extended and highly informative interview with Kahn by Daniel Bonilla Maldonado on the very idea of the Cultural Analysis of Law that is so central to Kahn’s work.1 This Special Issue takes a deeper dive into many of the topics raised in that earlier interview. Originating in a two day Workshop in Glasgow in April 2022,2 the project brings together a number of scholars who either have a close scholarly connection with Kahn (as ex-students or academic interlocutors) or have been inspired by his work. We make no claim to be comprehensive in what we have produced, or as to who has been involved in its production. Over more than 30 years Kahn’s writings have been prodigious in quantity and dazzlingly diverse in their breadth.3 In the fullness of time, there will surely be more and more rounded studies of his important and highly distinctive corpus. It is hoped that the present collection will supply a foundation for any such future work. Hopefully too, its key themes and stresses indicate something of what makes Kahn’s work both important and distinctive. What are these themes? To begin with, the overall composition of the Special Issue reflects the double sense in which we should be interested in “the perspective of Paul Kahn.” For our editorial aim has been one both of detailed inquiry into the perspective of Kahn, and of the consideration and illumination of a number of topical questions on the relationship between law and political