Six bursar­ies are avail­able to assist PhD stu­dents and recent PhD gradu­ates in any dis­cip­line to attend all four sem­inars in the UK’s ESRC (Eco­nomic and Social Research Coun­cil) sem­inar series The Pub­lic Life of Private Law, which will run 2013 – 2014. The first sem­inar takes place at the Uni­ver­sity of Kent on 18 Janu­ary 2013.

The series exam­ines the rela­tions between private legal oblig­a­tion and polit­ical struggle. Private law has an ever more demand­ing pub­lic life. If it ever had any mater­ial real­ity, the tra­di­tional view that saw pub­lic law as under­pin­ning the just dis­tri­bu­tion of power between cit­izens and the state, and private law as primar­ily con­cerned with reg­u­lat­ing indi­vidual apolit­ical pro­jects, is no longer viable. Private law is increas­ingly vis­ible in the man­age­ment of polit­ical con­flict, whether that is the use of ‘per­sons unknown injunc­tions’ to pre­vent protest, tort and land law lit­ig­a­tion for human rights abuses or the privat­iz­a­tion of reli­gious divorce. It fre­quently determ­ines the legal and polit­ical spaces in which dis­putes are staged, and sets the thresholds for entry into those spaces. By trans­pos­ing polit­ical dis­agree­ment into its own dis­course of risk, respons­ib­il­ity, duty, agree­ment, harm, resti­tu­tion and com­pens­a­tion, it opens some pos­sib­il­it­ies for polit­ical action and con­strains oth­ers. All this occurs accord­ing to the pecu­liar sanc­tions, rem­ed­ies and flows of power which private law entails. The series seeks to invest­ig­ate new uses of private law, which may gen­er­ate novel ‘strategies of rup­ture’ or jar­ring or viol­ent exper­i­ences of being ‘bound to law’; of polit­ical and legal dislocation.

The sem­inar series is free to attend. We are offer­ing six bursar­ies of up to £400 each to sub­sid­ise PhD stu­dents’ travel and accom­mod­a­tion costs. This sup­port is avail­able to stu­dents who are able to attend each of the four sem­inars. You may be eli­gible for one of the six bursar­ies if you are:

• A cur­rent or recently-​completed PhD stu­dent in any dis­cip­line, and not yet in a salar­ied full-​time aca­demic post.
• Work­ing in any dis­cip­line on a pro­ject which is rel­ev­ant to the themes of this sem­inar series.
• Able to attend each of the 4 sem­inars in the series dur­ing 2013 and 2014.
• Will­ing to par­ti­cip­ate in the work of the series by (i) act­ing as a dis­cussant at least one of the sem­inars (ii) pro­du­cing occa­sional blogs and other con­tent for this web­site as required.

If you wish to apply for one of the bursar­ies, please email Mairead Enright m.enright[at]kent.ac.uk explain­ing (in 500 words max.) how your PhD research inter­sects with the aims of the work­shop. Please attach a CV, includ­ing a list of pub­lic­a­tions. The dead­line for applic­a­tions is 14 Decem­ber 2012 at 5pm.

Fur­ther details, includ­ing a descrip­tion of all four sem­inars, is avail­able at The Pub­lic Life of Private Law web­site: http://​pub​licprivatelaw​.word​press​.com.