An interdisciplinary conference exploring the relationship of law with critical spatial practices will be held in London on Friday 19 June, co-organised by Kent Law School academic Dr Thanos Zartaloudis.
‘Thinking Spatial Practices with and against Law’ aims to address questions about spatial justice that have emerged following diverse developments such as the Arab Spring and occupy movements, drone warfare, the criminalisation of squatting in Europe, restriction of the uses of public space under securitisation, surveillance and disciplinary architecture, and the housing crisis in the UK and elsewhere.
Dr Zartaloudis said: ‘This interdisciplinary colloquium explores the specific role of law, not only in terms of its functions of disciplining, ordering and controlling, but also in terms of the possibilities it offers for critical spatial practices. Law holds a special relationship to spatiality as the latter is ingrained in its historical formation and logics of ordering and control.’
Co-organised with Dr Başak Ertür from Birkbeck School of Law, the conference will be held at Birkbeck College and has been given funding by the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research.
Speakers include Dr Adrian Lahoud, Platon Issaias and Eray Çaylı (Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL); Hanna Baumann (Department of Architecture, Cambridge); Orsalia Dimitriou (Department of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths/Central St. Martins); Professor Helen Carr (Kent Law School, University of Kent); Dr Lucy Finchett-Maddock (School of Law, University of Sussex); Ross Exo Adams (Faculty of Architecture, Iowa State University); Dr Sarah Keenan (Birkbeck School of Law); and Professor Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (School of Law, University of Westminster).
Staff and students are welcome to attend the conference with online registration advised as soon as possible as places are limited.
Dr Zartaloudis is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Kent Law School. He also lectures in History and Theory of Architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. The focus of Dr Zartaloudis’s architectural research lies in architectural theory and urban design, particularly in the way in which these subjects overlap with history, theory and legal regulation.
Dr Zartaloudis’s latest books, The Idea of Justice and Law Has Never Been Human, are due for publication in 2016. A further book, The Use of Things: In Law, Art and Architecture, will be published in 2017. He is also the head-editor (with Anton Schütz) of the book series titled Encounters in Law and Philosophy, published by Edinburgh University Press.
Image credit: Christopher Mark Johnson