Bruno Rodrigues de Lima studied law and history in Salvador, Brasilia, and Frankfurt am Main. In 2014, he received his Law degree from the State University of Bahia and became a lawyer accredited by the Brazilian Bar. After practicing law and representing clients before the Supreme Court, he pursued an LL.M. at the University of Brasilia. In 2022, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Legal History (summa cum laude) from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University for his thesis on the legal knowledge of the former enslaved person and self-trained lawyer Luiz Gama (1830-1882). In the same year, Lima earned the Walter Kolb Prize, the most prestigious dissertation prize conferred by both Goethe University and the Frankfurt City Hall. In 2023, he received the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society, recognizing his outstanding scientific contributions "for the research on the legal history of Brazil and the history of the abolition of slavery."

In 2024, he received the Jabuti Prize for the "Book of the Year" in law published in Brazil and began a visiting professorship at FGV Sao Paulo Law School. In recent years, his work has gained considerable attention from various media outlets, including The Economist, The Guardian, BBC News, Deutsche Welle and Le Figaro. In Brazil, his research has been extensively covered by major newspapers, magazines, and TV channels, such as Folha de S. Paulo, TV Bandeirantes, Revista Veja, and O Globo. A scientific profile of Bruno Lima and his award-winning thesis is available in the Max Planck Forschung.

Selected Presentations

Black Reading of White Constitutions: Revisiting US and Brazilian Constitutional History from the Perspectives of Frederick Douglass and Luiz Gama, World Comparative Law Annual Conference, Humboldt University Berlin, July 2024
Becoming a Black Jurist in a Slave Society: On the Legal Biography of Luiz Gama (Brazil, 1830-1882), Colonial Legal Biography Workshop, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, April 2023
Luiz Gama – Brazil’s Frederick Douglass, Center for the Study of Law and Society Speaker Series, University of California, Berkeley, USA, October 2022
The Untold Story of Abolitionism: Luiz Gama’s Freedom Claims in Brazil, 1850-1888, The Stanford Center for Law and History, Stanford Law School, USA, October 2022
Slavery, Freedom and Civil Law in the Brazilian Courts: How the Black Lawyer Luiz Gama Developed a Legal Doctrine that Freed Five Hundred Slaves, Latin America and Caribbean Workshop, Princeton University, USA, March 2020

Selected Teaching

Legal History: Sources and Methods, FGV Sao Paulo Law School
Brazilian Legal History and Luiz Gama’s Pragmatic Normative Literature, Brazilian Superior Court of Justice
Representation, Sovereignty and Citizenship - History and Theory of Constitutional Law in Brazil Empire (1850-1889), Brazilian Superior Court of Justice

Public Outreach

Scientific Communication (selected)

Publications

Edited and Single-authored Books

Book Chapter

Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. De escravizado a professor: o letramento e a pedagogia de Luiz Gama. In: Gomes, Flávio; Viana, Iamara. Vidas Impressas: Intelectuais negras e negros na escravidão e na liberdade. São Paulo: Selo Negro (2024), pp. 53-70
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Como Gama aprendeu e praticou o Direito no Brasil do Contrabando? In: Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de (Ed.). Luiz Gama: Obras completas. Volume 5: Direito, 1870-1875. São Paulo: Hedra (2023), pp. 19-53
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. A gazua e o cofre: para uma história social do crime e do poder judiciário na São Paulo da Segunda Escravidão. In: Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de (Ed.). Luiz Gama: Obras completas. Volume 7: Crime, 1877-1879. São Paulo: Hedra (2023), pp. 17-57
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. A fúria negra ressuscita outra vez: Luiz Gama às vésperas da Abolição. In: Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de (Ed.). Luiz Gama: Obras completas. Volume 8: Liberdade, 1880-1882. São Paulo: Hedra (2021), pp. 15-51
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Democracia! In: Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de (Ed.). Luiz Gama: Obras completas. Volume 4: Democracia, 1866-1869. São Paulo: Hedra (2021), pp. 15-47
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Memórias do estado de sítio na Bahia (1924-1926): política, direito e Constituição em testemunhos de “Lama & Sangue”. In: Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de (Ed.). Lama & Sangue – Bahia 1926. Salvador: Editora da Universidade Federal da Bahia (2018), pp. 17-46

Book Review

Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. The Still Raveled Legal History of Modern Abolition [Review of: Edgardo Pérez Morales, Unraveling Abolition. Legal Culture and Slave Emancipation in Colombia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2022]. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg (2024), pp. 218-219
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Private Law and Enslaved Families in Colonial Brazil [Review of: Fabiana Schleumer, Laços de família: Africanos e crioulos na capitania de São Paulo colonial. São Paulo: Alameda 2020]. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg, 30 (2022), pp. 256-257
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Raça, escravidão e liberdade na história do direito [Review of: Alejandro de la Fuente, Ariela J. Gross, Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press 2020]. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg, 29 (2021), pp. 348-350
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. A Black Jurist in a Slave Society: Antonio Pereira Rebouças and the Trials of Brazilian Citizenship [Review of: Keila Grinberg, A Black Jurist in a Slave Society: Antonio Pereira Rebouças and the Trials of Brazilian Citizenship, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2019]. American Journal of Legal History, vol. 61, Issue 2 (2021), pp. 276-279
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Multinormatividade da Escravidão [Review of: Edward Rugemer, Slave Law and the Politics of Resistance in the Early Atlantic World, Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2018]. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg, 28 (2020), pp. 319-321
Lima, Bruno Rodrigues de. Liberated Africans With Rights? [Review of: Beatriz Mamigonian, Africanos livres: a abolição do tráfico de escravos no Brasil, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras 2017]. Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History Rg, 27 (2019), pp. 414-416

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