The Role and Value of the Imagination in Legal Thought

The Aesthetics Research Centre (ARC) invite you to a Research Seminar with:

Dr Maks del Mar, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London

The Role and Value of the Imagination in Legal Thought

Wednesday 18th October, 5pm – 7pm, GLT3, University of Kent

This talk will offer an overview of four key abilities that demonstrate the role and value of the imagination in legal thought. The four abilities are: 1) supposing; 2) relating; 3) image-making; and 4) perspective-taking. The talk will first examine these abilities in general, and then apply them to four devices of legal thought. The four devices are: 1) fictions; 2) metaphors; 3) hypothetical narratives; and 4) perspectival tests. For a sneak preview with some examples, see: https://aeon.co/essays/why-judges-and-lawyers-need-imagination-as-much-as-rationality.

Maks Del Mar is Reader in Legal Theory at the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, where he is also founding co-director of the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context. He is presently working on a monograph on Imagination and the Legal Mind (Hart / Bloomsbury) and co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Law and Humanities. One of his primary research interests is the aesthetics of legal thought.​