A Kent conference exploring the relationship of time to law and regulation will be making innovative use of Lego to help participants visualise key concepts.

The Lego will feature in a plenary session entitled ‘Visualising Law and Time’ during the final international conference of Kent Law School’s Regulating Time network to be held on Kent’s Canterbury campus from Thursday 8 to Saturday 10 September.

The three-year network, funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council, comprises an interdisciplinary group of scholars interested in the relationship between law and dominant concepts of time. It is co-ordinated by Kent Law School Reader in Law Dr Emily Grabham and Dr Sian Beynon-Jones, a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York.

Kent Law School Professor Amanda Perry-Kessaris, who will lead the innovative plenary session with Lego, said:

‘Let’s say I am facing a problem in my current research/administration/teaching project, and I want to get the advice of my colleagues. I can build a model for my colleagues of where my project is now, explaining what each piece represents and how it relates to the other pieces. The building process, including the selection of the pieces and where to put them, will force me to think very precisely about my project, but in terms that are still accessible to others. I learn new things about how my project fits together, and I offer a shared point of reference or vocabulary to my colleagues.’

The conference, The New Legal Temporalities: Discipline and Resistance across Domains of Time, will explore time’s fraught relationship with law, governance and ordering: the use of time in projects of discipline, the significance of time to resistance, and the creation of new temporal horizons.

Sent in by A.P.Shieber@kent.ac.uk.