Kent Law School is hosting a new AHRC-funded international network on the theme of ‘Law and the Human’, with the participation of network partner Amherst College in the US.
The interdisciplinary network, supported by a £45,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is lead by Dr Connal Parsley (Principal Investigator) and Professor Maria Drakopoulou. Its aim is to gather, support and advance interdisciplinary research that raises questions, provokes reflection and generates new knowledge on the figure of the human and its relationship to law. To this end, the Network will organise meetings, events, publications and web-based media communications, aimed at fostering international dialogue and debate among scholars from the social sciences, law, the arts, and the humanities.
Dr Parsley said: ‘The network’s premise is that the historical role of law, as a primary site of knowledge and debate about the nature of the human and humanity, has been called into question in multiple ways. Current political, economic, biomedical and environmental conditions cast doubt on the universality of the “individual human subject” of liberal jurisprudence, political theory and philosophy, while recent developments in bio-sciences and technology have questioned longstanding conceptual demarcations between the human and non-human, machine and human, and human and animal. At the same time, new modes of thought emerging across the humanities and social sciences have engendered novel categories, such as “posthuman”, “technohuman” and “transhuman” that have come to challenge law’s once venerable authority over the normative institution of humanity.’
Anyone interested in following the latest news about the Network’s activities is invited to subscribe to their mailing list, visit their website and/or follow the Network on Twitter.
Dr Parsley is a Senior Lecturer at Kent. His research and teaching lie within interdisciplinary humanistic approaches to law, understanding law as a technical and cultural institution that shapes human life and relations.
Professor Drakopoulou has research interests in feminist and political theory, continental feminist philosophy, post-colonial theory, history and historiography, legal philosophy and feminist jurisprudence.
Both Dr Parsley and Professor Drakopoulou are Directors of Kent’s Centre for Critical Thought (CCT). The Centre facilitates cross-disciplinary collaborations within and beyond the University and is home to a wide variety of events, from major conferences and lectures through to seminars, workshops, and reading groups.