Valérie Hayaert is a classicist, historian and humanist researcher of the early modern European tradition. Her particular interest lies in the mens emblematica, the humanist lawyers’ invention of woodcut depictions of legal and theological themes, in the tradition of playful seriousness or serio ludere. She received the EUI Alumni Prize for the best interdisciplinary thesis in 2006. Her book ‘Mens emblematica’ et humanisme juridique was published in 2008. Her subsequent work looked at the aesthetics of justice in courthouses of the early modern period until today. Valérie has taught in Cyprus, Tunisia, England and France and held various positions and fellowships. From 2014 to 2018, she served as co-editor for the Journal Emblematica. An interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies (AMS Press, New York then, Droz Geneva). She co-authored with the French judge Antoine Garapon Allégories de Justice : la grand’chambre du Parlement Flandre à Douai, and recently contributed to two exhibitions in Belgium on images of Justice : The Art of Law, Groeningen Museum, Bruges (2017) and Call for Justice, Hof Busleyden Museum, Mechelen (2018). Her forthcoming new book is entitled Lady Justice : the Anatomy of an Allegory (Edinburgh University Press).

Valérie has recently been awarded the prestigeous Eutopia Science and Innovation Fellowship and she will pursue her research at the Criminal Justice Centre, University of Warwick. This research is entitled a European Survey of Legal Symbolism.