Widely maintained mythologies hold that “justice” refers to conclusive punishment for criminal wrongdoing (as in “an eye for an eye”). These narratives, centered on deviant acts rather than the systems in which actions unfold, delimit the possibility of justice within longstanding and embedded structures that have excluded certain individuals from the onset. If justice is understood as a process rather than an outcome, part of its work is to scrutinize the systems within which exclusive and excluding laws have been written and sustained.


Participating in this roundtable discussion are Dr. Sarah Keenan (School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London), Dr. Chandan Reddy (Associate Professor; Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies; University of Washington, Seattle), and Dr. Christopher J. Schell (Assistant Professor; School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences; University of Washington, Tacoma).


You can peruse their initial responses to the query here: bambitchell.henryart.org…


The Bugs & Beasts Before the Law Colloquium imagines and explores possibilities for survival and liberation for those whose protections are limited or whose personhood is compromised, oppressed, or threatened within sociolegal systems. Leveraging the power of art to reframe what is familiar by engaging multiple disciplinary perspectives, University of Washington faculty and graduate student discussants, as well as invited guest scholars and artists, will interrogate how the question of which bodies have equal protections and rights under the law continues to be contested, but has the possibility to be reimagined through the creative tools shared by scholarly, artistic, and pedagogic praxis.


This discussion will feature real-time captioning.