CLSJ & FRIVA cross-centre panel with Professor Joanne Conaghan: Addressing Current Legal Problems using Feminist Theory

The Centre for Law & Social Justice (LSJ) and Feminist Research into Violence & Abuse (FRIVA) are pleased to host a discussion panel for School of Law colleagues and students.

The panel’s special guest will be Professor Joanne Conaghan, who has kindly agreed to contribute to the panel in the leadup to delivering the LSJ Annual Lecture.
The panel is entitled ‘Addressing Current Legal Problems using Feminist Critical Theory’ and will feature Professor Conaghan and a selection of our leading academic experts based at the Centre for Law & Social Justice & FRIVA. They will offer their thoughts on how feminist theory can inform a range of pressing topical issues, including gendered SLAPPs (legal threats), trans rights and addressing violence against women. School speakers include Mitch Travis, Rebecca Shaw, Mozhgan Azimiyan, Rebecca Moosavian and James Greenwood-Reeves. The session will be chaired by Sam Lewis. Panel members will then answer questions from the audience for a thoughtful, stimulating debate on the insights and opportunities that feminist critique can offer to some of our current legal and political problems. 

Joanne joined the University of Bristol Law School in August 2013 having previously taught at the Universities of Kent, Exeter and San Diego California. A graduate and postgraduate of St Hugh’s College Oxford, Joanne has written extensively about issues relating to gender and law and is globally recognized as a leading scholar in the field of feminist legal studies. She is author of Law and Gender (2014) and co-author of Sexual History and the Rape Trial (with Yvette Russell, 2023) and The Wrongs of Tort (with Wade Mansell, 1993 & 1999). Joanne also co-edited The New Oxford Companion to Law (with Peter Cane, 2008). Joanne has been a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences since 2011 and of the British Academy since 2021. She acted as Chair of the REF2021 Law Subpanel and as Deputy Chair in 2014. In 2024, Joanne's contribution to legal scholarship was recognised by the award of Best Contribution to the Socio-legal Community (SLSA, 2024). In 2025, her monograph with Yvette Russell, “Sexual History Evidence and the Rape Trial”, won the Hart-SLSA Book Prize and the Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize (SLSA, 2025). From 2008-2011, Joanne was Head of the University of Kent Law School and from 2014-2018 she was Head of the University of Bristol Law School.

We look forward to seeing you there. Cake and refreshments will be provided.

Please register here.