We are delighted to announce the Inaugural Professorial Lecture by Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos on the 16th of November 2011 at 6.00pm (The Old Cinema, 309 Regent Street, London W1B 2UW). Please register here.

Abstract: What does it mean to be interdisciplinary? How far from its disciplinary field must a discipline veer in order to accommodate calls for interdisciplinarity, while at the same time retaining the distinction with other disciplines? Law’s social responsibility is that of delivering judgments that at least attempt to promote a sense of security and justice. In that sense, law’s function might be considered by definition to be given to the ivory cult of monodisciplinarity. The connection between law and justice often makes the law impermeable to other disciplinary approaches to justice, and quite dismissive of other disciplinary understandings of normativity. The perceived monopoly on justice apart, the law is simply another case of disciplinary closure that has been severely hit recently by the various ‘turns’.

This talk will focus on two fairly recent turns: the spatial and the corporeal turn, both of which are part of the broader material turn. I will offer three fundamental positions that eventually move beyond the concept of discipline itself: first, law is corporeal, second, law is spatial; and third, law is post-human.

Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, LLB, LLM, PhD, has read Law in Thessaloniki, Greece, as well as in other European cities as part of the European Mobility programmes. He completed his LLM at King’s College, London, and his PhD at Birkbeck College, London.

Andreas’s research interests include critical legal theory, autopoiesis, philosophy, psychoanalysis, linguistics, geography, art, phenomenology, and their critical instances of confluence. He researches in the areas of environmental law, human rights and postmodern jurisprudence.

He is a Professor of Law & Theory and Director of the Westminster International Law & Theory Centre at the University of Westminster, London, where he teaches European Union Law, Environmental Law and Critical Legal Theory.

Andreas recently won the Oxford University Press National Law Teacher of the Year Award 2011 after being successfully nominated by his students.