Dr Maria Tzanakopoulou

Overview

Biography

Maria joined Birkbeck in 2018 and is currently a Senior Lecturer in Law. She holds an LLM and PhD from University College London (UCL) and is a member of the Athens Bar. Before Birkbeck, she taught European Law and Human Rights Law at King’s College London and University College London, and International Human Rights Law at Queen Mary, University of London.

Her research focuses on constitutionalism and the state, labour law and digital technologies, European law, political economy, and historical materialism. She is the author of Reclaiming Constitutionalism: Democracy, Power, and the State (Hart Publishing, 2018) and has published articles in the Industrial Law Journal, European Law Open, and other journals.

She teaches Constitutional and Administrative Law, Labour Law, and Labour Law and Technology at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Maria has served as Admissions Tutor and Director of all QLD programmes and is currently Director of the LLB (all pathways) and LLM QLD. She is also Deputy REF Lead.

Qualifications

• PhD, University College London, 2016
• LLM in Public Law, University College London, 2009
• Ptychion (LLB), National Kapodistrian University of Athens, 2008

Administrative responsibilities

• Director of LLB (all pathways)
• Director of LLB with Business
• Director of LLB with Language
• Director of LLM Qualifying Law Degree
• Director of LLB with Foundation Year (2019-2025)
• LLB Admissions Tutor (2018-2023)

Professional activities

Maria regularly peer reviews for publishers including Hart Publishing and Routledge, and has also reviewed articles for journals like the Industrial Law Journal.

Professional memberships

• Member of the Athens Bar Association.

Research

Research interests

• Constitutional law and theory
• Labour law
• Labour law and digital technologies
• EU law
• Historical materialism
• Political economy

Research overview

Maria’s latest research interests are in historical materialism and structural Marxism, which she uses to understand transformations in law—whether constitutional, labour, or EU law. She is particularly interested in how social and economic structures shape legal developments and how law reflects and reproduces class domination in capitalism.

Her recent work focuses on labour, with a special interest in how digital technologies both challenge traditional labour relations and open possibilities for new forms of collective struggle. Through this lens, Maria explores the contradictions and opportunities presented by technological change, aiming to rethink labour law and constitutionalism in a way that addresses the evolving realities of work and class struggle.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions external to Birkbeck:

1

Supervisions within Birkbeck:

1

Maria is currently co-supervising one PhD student with Oxford University and welcomes supervisions in the areas of constitutional law and labour law with a focus on critical approaches.

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

• ATHENA MICHALAKEA

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Dec 2019

  Title of thesis:

  Regulating Sexual Labour in Modern and Contemporary Greece: State, governance feminism(s) and the sex workers' movement

  Awarded:

  2024

Teaching

Maria currently convenes and teaches, alongside Professor Marinos Diamantides, Constitutional and Administrative Law at both LLB and LLM QLD levels, as well as Public Law at GDL level. Since 2018, she has been convening and teaching Labour Law in the LLB programme.

Since 2020, she has also convened and taught the LLM module Labour, Law, and Technology, which explores technological change in production as a form of social change, critically engaging with and challenging technological determinism.

She contributes lectures to other postgraduate modules, such as Constitutional Law in Practice: Regional Perspectives and Regulating the Creative Economy.

Teaching modules

• Constitutional and Administrative Law (LADD033S4)
• Constitutional and Administrative Law (Senior Status) (LADD060S6)
• Introduction to the History, Theory and Politics of Constitutional Law (LADD066S7)
• Constitutional Law in Practice: Regional Perspectives (LADD067S7)
• Labour Law (level 5) (LALW034H5)
• Labour, law and technology (LALW061S7)
• Public Law (GDL) (LALW113H6)

Publications