Enacting the human in the social biologies

The Centre for Criminal Justice Studies are hosting this workshop to address legal and social science responses to profound epistemic shifts in social biologies.

This event is free to attend, but registration is required (see below). 

Recent decades have witnessed significant advances in biological knowledge, notably in the fields of genomics, epigenetics and neuroscience. These fields have challenged our understanding of what it is to be human, as well as constituting new ways to live as human. A significant aspect of this new scientific landscape is the turn to the social or environmental. In this, what were once imagined as immutable facts of existence - hardwired biological codes, systems, and processes - have lost their indifference to the social world. In particular, bodies have become porous to and shaped by environments of abuse and disadvantage.

The Centre for Law & Social Justice and the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds, are hosting this workshop to address legal and social science responses to these profound epistemic shifts. The workshop brings together academics from the University of Leeds, University of Sheffield, and University Technology Sydney to explore what these new knowledges (or knowledge claims) might tell us about what it is to be human in the 21st century, what new communities and responsibilities they might create, and how law and policy should respond. In this, the workshop also explores the values and norms that have become embedded in the science that is increasingly shaping law and policy.