5th June 2017
18.00 – 20.00
Cantre for Law and Society Annual Lecture
Scary Monsters: the Hopeful Undecidability of David Bowie (1947-2016)
Professor Alex Sharpe
https://cls-annual-lecture.eventbrite.co.uk
The lecture will be about three things: Monsters, Hope and one of the most significant artists of the 20th century, David Bowie. Monsters, because the monster is the outsider template par excellence. Hope, because monsters are quintessentially hopeful. Bowie, because he is the monster writ large. Of all the figures within popular culture, few embody the monster quite like David Bowie.
The lecture will first set some parameters for thinking about monsters, for not all scary creatures are monsters. In doing so, the lecture will draw, in particular, on the work of Michel Foucault and George Canguilhem. Once the theoretical ground has been laid for an analytically precise understanding of the monster, the lecture will consider their intrinsic hopefulness, something which Foucault and Canguilhem neglect.
The lecture will then turn to counter-cultural icon, sublime anti-hero and provocateur, David Bowie, in order to think through some key categorical distinctions which the monster brings to crisis. In particular, and through Bowie, we will journey through the territory of sex, gender and sexuality; human/animal hybridity, and the sacred and profane.
So roll up for the mother of monsters. The lecture promises to be many things, and certainly theoretically rich and an audio-visual feast. What it will not be is dull. Turn and face the strange … ch-ch- changes …
About the Speaker:
Professor Alex Sharpe (Law Professor, Keele University)
Alex is a Law Professor at Keele University (2004 - present) https://www.keele.ac.uk/law/people/academicstaff/alexsharpe/ and a door tenant at Garden Court Chambers, London https://www.gardencourtchambers.co.uk/barrister/alex-sharpe/ She also holds an Adjunct Chair at the Crime and Justice Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology (2014 -). She is a social and legal theorist, legal historian and gender, sexuality and the law scholar and activist. She has been writing about transgender/law issues for over twenty years and is extensively published on this subject and others. Her publications include:Transgender Jurisprudence: Dysphoric Bodies of Law (Cavendish, 2002); Foucault’s Monsters and the Challenge of Law (Routledge, 2010) and, most recently, Sexual Intimacy, Gender Identity and Fraud: Reframing the Legal & Ethical Debate (Routledge, forthcoming).
Alex sits on the International Legal Committee of WPATH (World Professional Association of Transgender Health), a law reform body which makes amicus curiae interventions in litigation worldwide, and on Amnesty International’s Expert Committee on the Criminalisation of Sexual and Reproductive Conduct. She regularly advises government departments, members of parliament, law firms and public interest advocacy organisations both in the UK and overseas concerning trans/law issues, and has been cited judicially including by US and Australian courts, as well as by the European Court of Human Rights.
She is also a massive David Bowie fan, and especially appreciative of his Mozart years (1971-1977).
Attendance at the lecture is free, but places are limited and registration is necessary. https://cls-annual-lecture.eventbrite.co.uk