Prof Maria Aristodemou
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Maria Aristodemou, LLB (Bristol) LLM (Cambridge) joined the School from the University of Bristol as a Senior Lecturer in Law in April 2000. Maria is Assistant Dean for International Links and Enterprise, helping to develop co-operation agreements between the Law School and universities in Hong Kong, Brazil and Australia. She is also Director and Admissions Tutor for the LLM General.
Major administrative roles have included acting as the School’s representative on the College Quality Assurance Committee for five years, monitoring and inspecting rules and processes of other Schools' programmes of study, as well as successfully organising and leading the Law School’s own quality audit.
Maria published "Law, Psychoanalysis, Society: Taking the Unconscious Seriously" (Routledge) in 2014. She has been appointed Adjunct Professor at Griffith School of Law, Queensland, Australia. Other recent invitations include Brown University in 2015; the University of Pretoria to teach a Masterclass on 'Law, Film and Ideology' in 2014; the International Symposium of Phenomenology in Perugia; the AIDEL Conference at University of Verona for their annual Law & Literature meeting; the ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) conference in Turin and Athens; and the IVR Conference in Krakow.
Maria's current research explores the intersections between legal and psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly in its Lacanian manifestations. She is on the Advisory Board for a new series of monographs on Critical Studies in Law and the Humanities to be published by Edinburgh University Press.
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Research
Research
Research overview
My work addresses cultural texts as a form of law-making with the potential to question, disrupt, and remake other forms of legislation. It is complimentary to, and also a departure from, work pioneered by other Birkbeck scholars which analysed legal texts as a form of literature. My research employs continental critical theory, in particular feminist, psychoanalytic and postcolonial approaches, to address texts ranging from Greek myths to contemporary writing, film and popular music.
My current research explores the intersections between legal and psychoanalytic theory and practice, particularly in its Lacanian manifestations. The different conceptions of the human subject in law and in psychoanalysis come in for special attention by pitting terms from legal and political discourse such as guilt, justice, freedom, responsibility, ideology, and democracy against their psychoanalytic counterparts and interrogating them through the awry lens of desire, repression, and above all, enjoyment.
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Aristodemou, Maria (2021) The Begum judgement on the couch. www.criticallegalthinking.com
- Aristodemou, Maria (2018) To be or not to be a (dead) father. Journal of International Dispute Settlement 9 (1), pp. 103-122. ISSN 2040-3585.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2016) Freedom in the free world: the extimate becomes the law. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 48, pp. 85-91. ISSN 0160-2527.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2014) A constant craving for fresh brains and a taste for decaffeinated neighbours. European Journal of International Law 25 (1), pp. 35-58. ISSN 0938-5428.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2013) Democracy or your life: knowledge, ignorance and the politics of Atheism in Saramago's Blindness and Seeing. Law, Culture and the Humanities 9 (1), pp. 169-187. ISSN 1743-8721.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2011) Where God was, law will be? Kant avec Houellebecq. Australian Feminist Law Journal 34, pp. 3-21. ISSN 1320-0968.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2010) Does the letter of the law always arrive at its destination? "A Study in Feminine Psychology". Law and Literature 22 (3), pp. 394-417. ISSN 1535-685X.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2010) Home is where the law is: a humbug reading of the Wizard of Oz. Southern Californian Interdisciplinary Law Journal 20 (1), pp. 9-21. ISSN 1077-0704.
- Zizek, Slavoj and Frosh, Stephen and Aristodemou, Maria (2010) Unbehagen and the subject: an interview with Slavoj Žižek. Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society 15, pp. 418-428. ISSN 1088-0763.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2009) Cause lawyers are alright: ideology works its magic on the cause. International Journal of Law in Context 5 (3), pp. 331-338. ISSN 1744-5523.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2008) Book review: courting failure: women and the law in twentieth-century literature by Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson. Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 27 (2), pp. 400-403.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2007) The trouble with the double: expressions of disquiet in and around law and literature. Law Text Culture 11, pp. 183-208. ISSN 1322-9060.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2002) Le legislateur en son labyrinthe. Europe revue literaire mensuelle pp. 147-161. ISSN 0014-2751.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1999) The seduction of Mimesis: theatre as woman and the play of difference and excess in Aeschylus's 'Oresteia'. Law & Literature 11 (1), pp. 1-33. ISSN 1535-685X.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1998) Law and desire in 'Measure for Measure'. Law and Critique 9 (1), pp. 117-140. ISSN 0957-8536.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1997) Language, ethics and imagination: narratives of the (m)other in law and literature. New Formations 32, pp. 34-48. ISSN 0950-2378.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1996) Law and postmodernity: explorations beyond theory. Feminist Legal Studies 4 (1), pp. 89-108. ISSN 0966-3622.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1994) Choice and evasion in judicial recognition of governments: lessons from Somalia. European Journal of International Law 5 (1), pp. 532-555. ISSN 0938-5428.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1993) Studies in law and literature: directions and concerns. Anglo-American Law Review pp. 157-193. ISSN 0308-6569.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1992) Applicability of Article VI, section 22, of the convention on the privileges and immunities of the United Nations. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 41 (3), pp. 695-701. ISSN 0020-5893.
Book
- Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia, eds. (2015) Crime fiction and the law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2014) Law, psychoanalysis, society: taking the Unconscious Seriously. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138787261.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2000) Law and literature: journeys from her to eternity. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198764366.
Book Review
- Aristodemou, Maria (2021) Advanced Introduction to Law and Literature by Peter Goodrich. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021. (In Press)
- Aristodemou, Maria (2021) Unravelling the Trump virus: on Honig's shell shocked.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1996) James Boyd White, 'Acts of Hope: Creating Authority in Literature, Law and Politics'. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. 1994, 322 pp..
- Aristodemou, Maria (1993) Casting light on Dracula: stories in law and culture.
- Aristodemou, Maria (1993) Peter Fitzpatrick, 'The Mythology of Modern Law'.
Book Section
- Aristodemou, Maria (2018) Decaffeinated democracy. In: Mihalopoullos-Philipopoulos, A. (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Law and Theory. Routledge. ISBN 9781315665733.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2018) Death by representation: in law, in literature, and in that space between. In: Salzani, C. and Vanhoutte, K. (eds.) Saramago’s Philosophical Heritage. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 101-120. ISBN 9783319919232.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter (2016) Necessary deceptions: Kafka and the mystery of law. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 87-104. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Macmillan, Fiona and Boge, Chris (2016) Lawless. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 123-139. ISBN 9781138818460.
- McCabe, Janet (2016) Locating justice in Wallander: trading TV stories, local jurisdictions and global injustice in the Swedish and UK Wallanders. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 55-70. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Tuitt, Patricia (2016) Critique, crime fiction and the no right answer thesis. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 15-26. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Boge, Chris (2015) Suspending democracy: vigilante justice and the rule of law in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 105-123. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Guardiola-Rivera, Oscar (2015) Attainable utopias. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 71-86. ISBN 9781138818460.
- McAuslan, Patrick (2015) Perceptions of law and legal systems in African crime fiction. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Schütz, Anton (2015) Age of crime fiction. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2015) The introduction didn't do it. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 1-15. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2015) The pervert's guide to the law: clinical vignettes from 'breaking bad' to 'breaking free'. In: de Sutter, L. (ed.) Zizek and Law. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138801844.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2015) A squeamishness about existing: Fernando Pessoa's quiet rejection of the human in 'The Book of Disquiet'. In: Ward, I. (ed.) Literature and Human Rights The Law: The Language and the Limitations of Human Rights. Law & Literature. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. pp. 67-82. ISBN 9783110368550.
- Schütz, Anton (2015) The rise of crime fiction and the fading of law's empire: chronicle of a swap foretold. In: Aristodemou, Maria and Macmillan, Fiona and Tuitt, Patricia (eds.) Crime Fiction and the Law. Birkbeck Law Press. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 27-42. ISBN 9781138818460.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2013) Bare law between two lives; Cornelia Vismann and Jose Saramago on naming, filing and cancelling. In: Carpi, D. and Gaakeer, J. (eds.) Liminal Discourses: Subliminal Tensions in Law and Literature. Law & Literature. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. pp. 37-52. ISBN 9783110301137.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2013) Disobedience and atheism. In: Loizidou, Elena (ed.) Disobedience: Concept and Practice. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138924598.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2012) Three close-ups in search of truth: law, cinema, psychoanalysis. In: Wan, M. (ed.) Reading The Legal Case: Cross-Currents between Law and the Humanities. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. pp. 47-60. ISBN 9780415673549.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2008) A little place before the law: two tales of one metaphor. In: Gaakeer, J. and Ost, F. (eds.) Crossing Borders: Law, Language and Literature. Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers. pp. 146-162. ISBN 978-90-5850-373-2.
- Aristodemou, Maria (2000) Fantasies of women as law-makers: empowerment or entrapment in Angela Carter's bloody chambers. In: Freeman, M. and Lewis, A. (eds.) Law and Literature: Current Legal Issues. Current Legal Issues. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198298137.
Conference Item
- Aristodemou, Maria (2015) Lacan meets law and literature, and laughs. Le droit dans les fictions: romans classiques, romans graphiques, 2015, University of Toulon
- Aristodemou, Maria (2012) How to argue human rights. Mexico Ministry of Justice Conference, 2012, Mexico City
- Aristodemou, Maria (2011) Freud to Lacan in Italy: the impact of phenomenology. International Symposium on Phenomenology, 2011, Perugia, Italy
- Aristodemou, Maria (2008) Democracy or your life! a few words on Jose Saramago's 'Politics of Silence'. Silence, 2008, University of Hull
- Aristodemou, Maria (2007) Law, literature and law and literature on the couch. 23rd IVR World Congress, Law and Philosophy Conference, 2007, Krakow
- Aristodemou, Maria (2007) The trouble with the double: law, literature and law and literature on the couch. Literature and Law Research seminar, 2007, Hull University
- Aristodemou, Maria (2006) The trouble with the double: expressions of disquiet in and around law and literature. Passages: Melbourne Law and Literature Conference, 2006, Melbourne
- Aristodemou, Maria (2003) The jurisprudence of the love song. Law School Staff Seminar, 2003, University College London
- Aristodemou, Maria (2003) The lawyer in his labyrinth. Langstaff Distinguished Speakers Series, 2003, McGill University, Montreal
- Aristodemou, Maria (2002) In the beginning was a lullaby. Law, Culture and Humanities Conference, 2002, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
- Aristodemou, Maria (2002) Taking law frivolously. Law and Society Conference, 2002, Vancouver, Canada
- Aristodemou, Maria (2000) Law and literature panel. Critical Legal Conference, 2000, Helsinki, Finland
- Aristodemou, Maria (1999) Law and literature panel. Critical Legal Conference, 1999, Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK
- Aristodemou, Maria (1999) The seduction of Mimesis; Aeschylus. Oresteia: Cardozo Law School Symposium on Law and Literature, 1999, Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, New York, USA
- Aristodemou, Maria (1998) Fantasies of women as law-makers. Law and Literature Colloquium, 1998, University College London
- Aristodemou, Maria (1996) Breaking the back of words: Toni Morrison's 'Beloved'. Legal Theory: Birkbeck and London School of Economics seminar series, 1996, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
- Aristodemou, Maria (1996) Feminism and post-colonialism. New Approaches to International Law, 1996, University of Madison, Wisconsin, USA
- Aristodemou, Maria (1996) Language, ethics and the imagination. Law and Literature Conference, 1996, University of Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia
- Aristodemou, Maria (1996) Narratives of the (m)other in Toni Morrison's fiction. Law and Literature Conference, 1996, University of West of England
- Aristodemou, Maria (1995) Writing law and literature. Critical Law Conference, 1995, Edinburgh, UK