St Mary's University, London
Centre for Law and Culture
Public Lecture Series 2014-15: ‘Law and
Culture’
Thursday
5 February 2015
6pm,
Senior Common Room
Professor Melanie Williams, University of Exeter
‘Law's Impotence, Gender Violence and the Power of Feminist Science
Fiction’
Where
‘mainstream’ (that is, essentially masculine) science fiction tends to explore
the possibilities of imagined or fantastical futures and scientific
possibilities, ‘feminist’ science fiction frequently reflects such projections
with an additional twist or motivation—the vision wedded less to extending or
radically altering the potential of the here and now and more to escaping it.
Feminist science fiction reflects, very strongly, a despair with the state of
the world, especially where women are concerned. And such despair arguably
seems justified when one considers the global scale of the problems of
violence, discrimination and ideological prejudice visited upon that half of
the world population that is female.
For this
discussion I wish to consider the message of a seminal work of science fiction—‘The
Women Men Don’t See’ (1973) by James Tiptree Junior (actually Alice B. Sheldon),
and a response to it in the form of ‘What I Didn’t See’ by Karen Joy Fowler and
her recent novel We are all Completely Beside
Ourselves—all indicating a possible link to theorisations of nature and
nurture relevant to feminism through primateology. The connections demonstrate
potentially interesting links between notions of the ‘alien’ and tensions in
biological and feminist theories, links which have subtle relevance to
subliminal beliefs in society and law around the world.
About the Speaker: Melanie Williams is Professor of Literary Jurisprudence and Deputy Head of the Law School
at the University of Exeter. She was formerly Professor of Law, University of
Swansea 2005-6; Reader in Law, University of Swansea, 2004-5; and Lecturer in
Law, University of Aberystwyth, 1995-2003. Her research is interdisciplinary,
focusing on the use of language and literary devices in law, as well as the use
of literary sources to explore notions of ‘legitimate' narrative.
Registration: The event is free and public without
registration, but feel free to contact thomas.giddens@smuc.ac.uk for further
details.
Venue: Senior
Common Room, St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London TW1 4SX
Getting here: www.stmarys.ac.uk/contact/directions.htm
