Critical Legal and Criminological Theory research cluster

The Birkbeck Law School has a sustained interest in critical theory and is recognised as an international hub in critical legal studies, by virtue of current and former Professors Costas Douzinas, Peter Goodrich and Peter Fitzpatrick, recognised pioneers in this field. They introduced post-structuralist theory and psychoanalysis to critical legal studies in the UK and promoted an understanding of law through ethics, aesthetics, politics and post-colonial theory.

Research specialisms

• We have strengthened our theoretical analysis of law through research in:
  • critical race and feminist theory
  • Frankfurt critical theory
  • gender
  • new materialism
  • queer theory
  • political economy
  • political theory and political theology
  • sexuality.

Relevant research centres

• The research network most closely involved in this cluster is the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities (BIH). 

Members

• Maria Aristodemou (psychoanalysis, gender)
• Marinos Diamantides (political theology, constitutionalism)
• Costas Douzinas (political theory)
• Başak Ertür (political theory, aesthetics)
• Michelle Everson (political economy, constitutionalism)
• Adam Gearey (aesthetics, critique of political economy, political philosophy, and critical jurisprudence)
• Oscar Guardiola-Rivera (post-colonial theory, race)
• Patrick Hanafin (post-colonialism)
• Steven Hutchinson (criminological theory, risk theory)
• Sarah Keenan (political theory)
• Sarah Lamble (queer theory)
• Elena Loizidou (gender, political theory, anarchism)
• Fiona Macmillan (political economy)
• Susy Menis (criminological theory, legal genealogy)
• Nathan Moore (new materialism)
• Leslie Moran (sexuality, visual theory)
• Stewart Motha (post-colonial theory, political theology)
• Craig Reeves (psychoanalysis, Frankfurt School critical theory)
• Victoria Ridler (legal theory)
• Renata Salecl (psychoanalysis, political theory)
• Tanya Serisier (feminist theory, sexuality, narrative theory)
• Sappho Xenakis (political economy of crime and punishment, comparative and international criminological theory)

Postgraduate Research Student members

• Shailesh Kumar
• Roberto Yamato

Current and recent externally funded research projects

• Legalising the state of emergency in the late Ottoman empire (Stewart Motha)