Directions, Divergences, and Dilemmas: What next for the Feminist Project in Law? LSJ's Annual Lecture

The Centre for Law & Social Justice (LSJ) is pleased to host our Annual Lecture for 2025-2026, delivered by Professor Joanne Conaghan of Bristol University School of Law.

‘Directions, divergences, and dilemmas: What next for the feminist project in law?’

This lecture explores the past, present and future(s) of feminist legal scholarship. It traces the origins and evolution of this intellectual tradition, charts the various trajectories it has followed, and critically considers the key challenges and contestations which feminist scholars working in law currently confront. Of central concern is the future of feminist legal studies as a critical, coherent justice-seeking approach to legal research. Does feminism still have something to offer critical legal studies or is the feminist project in law now obsolete?

Professor Joanne Conaghan 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.

Professor Conaghan’s lecture will be of great interest to a wide range of academics and students researching feminism and law across a range of disciplines, and we look forward to seeing you there.

The lecture will be followed by a wine reception 18.30-19.30.

Attendance is free, but spaces are limited. If you wish to attend, please register here.