THE DIRECTOR’S SEMINAR SERIES Law And Humanities in a Pandemic: (Re) Imagining the Human Condition through Covid-19

Online Event 

Covid-19 and the Legal Regulation of Working Families
Professor Nicole Busby, University of Glasgow 
Professor Grace James, University of Reading

A critique of the nature/implications of the UK’s response to Covid for working families with caregiving responsibilities. In part 1 we assess, drawing on Fineman’s vulnerability theory, the impact of the response on working families. In part 2 we consider how, if viewed through a VT lens, the state’s handling of the pandemic  can be analysed so that the lessons learned might aid a more just social / economic recovery. The core focus of this paper is to reveal and disrupt existing allocations of power and privilege and to value our common vulnerability and its consequences for work and families.

Playing with Wench Tactics: Thinking about Rhythm, Routine and Rest in Decelerating University Life after the Pandemic
Ruth Fletcher, Queen Mary University of London

This paper will reflect on collaboration in the production of Wench Tactics (Fletcher et al 2017) in light of slow scholarship (Mountz et al 2015) and slow university aesthetics (van Marle 2018).  Wench tactics involved experiments by Feminist Legal Studies with publishers’ schedules, editorial space and savouring unplanned contributions, as journal editors sought to leverage more time and money from Springer, the publishers, and to build slower, and selectively intense, research community through workshops and retreats.  Figuring out what works in bringing a mixture of rhythm, routine and rest to scholarly life presents an opportunity to reimagine the post-pandemic university.  

Law, Every Day Spaces and Objects, and Being Human
Professor Jill Marshall, Royal Holloway, University of London

COVID-19 lockdown restricts our freedom of movement and ability to physically meet with others, including loved ones. For most, this has meant staying at home. As part of my project investigating law’s functions and how law shapes our understandings of human freedom, identity and living, this paper identifies, and draws on, lockdown themes from Perec’s ‘infra-ordinary’, and de Maistre’s ‘journey around his room’. It explores how questioning our everyday spaces, habits and the material objects of which our lives consist, what goes without saying, can change our ways of being and living in dynamic and transformative ways.

THE DIRECTOR’S SEMINAR SERIES Law And Humanities in a Pandemic Full Programme

This Webinar is free but advance booking is required. Details about how to join the virtual event will be circulated via email to registered attendees closer to the event date.