What does it mean to be seen? What does it mean to see? What can and cannot, should and should not, be visible? What are the limits of legal sight, and what lies beyond? What can academic and critical study make visible to law? Can (in)visibility produce (in)justice? The Law and Culture Conference 2016 aims stimulate a wide ranging and in-depth discussion on the tensions, significance, implications and critical dimensions of the open theme of ‘(In)visibility’.
Indicative concerns include:
- political and legal visibility/invisibility, including critical gender and race studies, the legal and cultural responses to current migration crises, the protection and rights of minorities
- the visible/unseen dimensions of law and its institution, including legal aesthetics, law and visuality
- law’s regulation of visibility, including law and art, the regulation of culture, illegitimate images
- law’s (in)visibility within culture, including popular culture, film, comics, literature and television
- legal history, including seen/unseen histories,
- ‘hidden victims’ in criminal and other contexts
- visible and hidden voices in the legal academy
Please submit abstracts (250 words), plus 3 keywords and a short biography (50 words), via email by 30 April 2016. Papers will be 20 minutes in length, with additional time for questions.
Confirmed Plenary Speakers: Sionaidh Douglas-Scott (Anniversary Chair in Law, Queen Mary University of London), Amanda Perry-Kessaris (Professor of Law, Kent Law School), Stuart Toddington (Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Huddersfield)
About the Centre for Law and Culture
Launched by Lady Hale in 2014, the Centre for Law and Culture (CLC) is an interdisciplinary hub for research at the intersections of law, justice, and the humanities. It is a home for the cultural study of law, and as a rallying point for such culturally enriched legal research, the Centre engages legal study that spans topics and themes from across critical and cultural legal studies. It thereby aims to incubate and promote critical research that crosses and challenges traditional legal boundaries in a cultural context. For more information, visit www.stmarys.ac.uk/law-and-culture.
Location: St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London TW1 4SX (www.stmarys.ac.uk/contact/location-maps.htm).
For information and submissions, please contact: Thomas Giddens thomas.giddens@stmarys.ac.uk
A sharable PDF poster can be found here.
Registration
There is an anticipated £60 registration fee (plus booking), which will cover attendance, refreshments and lunch for both days and the conference dinner. Reduced cost packages will be available for single-day attendance.