Biography

I completed my PhD in Law at the University of Hong Kong in January 2016, conducting part of my research at New York University as a visiting doctoral researcher (academic year 2014/15). My dissertation, titled ‘A Genealogy of the Concept of Sovereignty in China, 1840-today’, is about the history of international law in relation to China; it looks particularly at the way the concept of sovereignty was appropriated and used in China from the 19th century until its most recent developments.
Before my PhD I received an MA in Political Science from the University of Bologna (2011) and an MA cum laude in Asian Languages, Economics and Legal Institutions from the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari (2010). I was awarded two scholarships by the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and I spent almost two years in China working on my research. I graduated cum laude with a BA in Chinese Language and Culture at the University of Rome La Sapienza (2007).
As a second year Max Weber Fellow I will focus on the Chinese conceptions and attitudes towards the international legal order from a historical perspective.
My general research interests include Western and Chinese legal and political philosophy, legal history, and international law and relations.