Stephan Kirste

Stephan Kirste (born November 12, 1962, in Oldenburg, Federal Republic of Germany) is a German legal scholar and university professor of legal and social philosophy at the Faculty of Law of the University of Salzburg (Austria). Since 2020, Kirste is also an associate professor (Professor Colaborador) at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil) in the graduate program.

Life and education

After graduating from high school, Kirste studied law at the University of Regensburg and modern history and philosophy at the University of Freiburg in Breisgau until 1990. In 1994, Kirste finished his legal studies with the Second State Examination in Law.

Kirste had already been working as a research assistant at the University of Freiburg and at the University of Jena since completing his law studies. In Freiburg, Kirste received his doctorate in 1997 with a dissertation in legal philosophy on the topic of "The Temporality of Positive Law and the Historicality of Legal Consciousness". Following his doctorate, Kirste continued his work as a research assistant and later as a research fellow at the University of Heidelberg at the chair of Winfried Brugger. In 2004, he completed his habilitation there on the basis of a book on independent public agencies. The law faculty of the University of Heidelberg awarded him the venia legendi for public law, philosophy of law, modern constitutional history and sociology of law. He then worked as a university lecturer at the University of Heidelberg and guest professor at various German universities.