Dr Susanna (Susy) Menis

Overview

Biography

Dr Susanna Menis (Susy) is a Lecturer in Law and has been teaching in higher education since 2009. She joined the School of Law at Birkbeck as a PhD student in 2006; since then, she has taught several law and criminology modules as an associate lecturer. In 2018, she was appointed a lecturer and serves as the Programme Director for the Certificate HE Legal Studies.

Throughout the years, Susy has actively engaged with Birkbeck's widening participation ethos. The Certificate programme, redesigned authentically along the lines of critical pedagogy, inclusive, and blended, has welcomed several Compass Project students; her law Get Started Taster Course was one of the first to be offered online during the COVID-19 period, and it is still annually ongoing.       

Since its inception, Susy has been a member (and currently the Chair) of Birkbeck’s Advisory Board for the HR Research Excellence Award. This has been an opportunity to advocate for voices that are usually hidden. To encourage a healthy research environment, her approach to supporting PhD students (as Lead) is inspired by the scholarship on holistic academic development and the movement #PositiveAcademia. In her academic journey, she explores the question of academic identity with the support of the Cygna network. She is also an external examiner on the law degree offered by the University of London’s International Programme.     

Susy’s research is ‘inter’ and ‘cross’ disciplinary. She experiments with different theoretical and methodological frameworks taken mainly from the critical legal tradition and social history. Her research sits at the intersection of English criminal law, criminal justice (and criminology), and socio-cultural practices. Susy is also interested in the relationship between history and policy and has written on the historical policy development of women’s prisons in England and the historical development of university legal education. Whether she writes about the first English woman to be awarded a law degree (Eliza Orme), the role of the emotion of disgust in judicial decisions, or masculinity and patriarchy in criminal law doctrine, she is committed to questioning commonly held beliefs, knowledge production, hierarchy, invisibility and otherness.

A bit more about me:

I was an honorary researcher for 2017/18 as part of a research project on legal education. In 2019 I was shortlisted for the Birkbeck Public Engagement Award, and in 2020 I was shortlisted by Birkbeck as a candidate for the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

I believe that hands-on experience is the best way to develop expertise and meet great people, hence my wide volunteering engagements. I worked and volunteered with several organisations and charities, such as the Prison Advice and Care Trust, Women in Prison and Prisoners’ Families and Friends’ Services. My last engagement within the CJS was with the Independent Monitoring Board of Prisons for one of London’s biggest category B male prisons. During the pandemic period (2021-22) I volunteered along with my husband as a vaccinator on behalf of St John’s Ambulance and the NHS.

Highlights

• A History of Women’s Prisons: an artwork exhibition. The Crypt Gallery, London. 24 May – 2 June 2019. In collaboration with artists: Noriko Hisazumi and Fabiana Vigna

  Flickr

  Instagram  

  
  

• A History of Women’s Prisons in England: The Myth of Prisoner Reformation (2020) 

  Kindle

  An introduction to the book by Susy

  An interview with the author 

• Video lecture: Eliza Orme, the first English female law graduate.

• Video lecture: history and the (in)visibility of the female prisoners

Office hours

Office hours Mon-Fri 9am-6pm. Meetings and catching up with students are by prior arrangement, and may be taken via Teams or phone. 

Qualifications

• MA Historical Research, Birkbeck University of London, 2018
• PhD in law/Criminology, Birkbeck University of London, 2016
• Msc in Criminology & Criminal Justice, University of Surrey, 2005
• Dottore in Giurisprudenza (BA Hon), University of Bologna, Italy, 2004

Web profiles

• My Collection
• Google Scholars

Administrative responsibilities

• Programme Director Certificate HE Legal Studies
• Certificate HE Legal Studies modules’ convener
• Chair Mitigating Circumstances
• Law Career

ORCID

0000-0003-4556-1744

Research

Research interests

• criminal law doctrine
• law and social history
• legal history
• emotions and the law
• psychology, literature and the law
• prison history
• cultural and critical criminology
• artwork representation of history and the critical analysis of popular culture
• critical legal education
• non-traditional law students
• law/criminology microhistory

Research overview

If you are interested in pursuing research in any of these areas, you should first read our advice on how to apply for MPhil/PhD research before submitting an application.

 

I have combined my criminology and legal education background in my teaching and research. My teaching in criminology has been wide covering a variety of themes, thus allowing me to take on the supervision of dissertations including topics such as ‘LGBT in prison’, ‘assisted suicide’, ‘cyber-flashing’, ‘sexual offences and police evidence’, ‘public spending on victim services’, etc. My criminal law teaching and convenorship on the LLB and LLM refined the focus of my research agenda. My approach to teaching and research draws on the socio-legal and critical traditions. I am committed to interdisciplinary, experimenting with history, policy, emotions, literature and art.

 

Criminal Law: I have conducted several projects addressing criminal law doctrine within the context of social history, legal history, emotions, psychology and literature.

Criminology: My writing focuses on prison history, cultural and critical criminology. I am interested in artwork representation of history and the critical analysis of popular culture.

Legal education: I have written on critical legal education, the historical development of university legal education, and a microhistory of Eliza Orme, the first English female law student who was awarded a degree by University of London in 1888.

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students who are interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of research interest, or more generally, research concerning criminal law and the criminal justice. 

If you are interested in pursuing research in any of these areas, you should first read our advice on how to apply for MPhil/PhD research before submitting an application.

Birkbeck has been part of developing a three-week course in collaboration with the Bloomsbury Learning Exchange, designed to provide information and advice for anyone deciding whether doctoral study is the right path for them. Swapping myths and misconceptions for useful tips and resources, the free ‘Is a PhD Right for Me?’ course will help you prepare for PhD applications and beyond.  

Teaching

My external examiner role for South Devon College on behalf of Plymouth University and my visiting lectureship at St. Mary’s University contributed to my teaching growth. However, my long-term teaching with the Open University and Essex University Online has been fundamental for the development of my blended/online teaching expertise.

Teaching modules

• Undergraduate Dissertation (LADD049S6)
• Criminal Law (Senior Status) (LADD062S7)
• Criminal Evidence (Level 6) (LALA199H6)
• English Legal System (LALW045S4)
• The Administration of Justice (LALW046S4)
• Law, Society and Ethics (LALW047S4)
• Criminal Law (LALW056S4)

Publications

Business and community

Outreach

Public lecture

Women, History, Invisibility and Prisons. Stratford Public Library, London. 13 March 2020, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/events/remote_event_view?id=11569

Exhibitions

A History of Women’s Prisons: an artwork project. Stratford Library, London. 13 – 31 March 2020. In collaboration with the artist Noriko Hisazumi (exhibition).

 

A History of Women’s Prisons: an artwork project. Idea Store Whitechapel, London. 6 – 31 January 2020. In collaboration with the artist Noriko Hisazumi (exhibition).

 

A History of Women’s Prisons: an artwork exhibition. The Crypt Gallery, London. 24 May – 2 June 2019. In collaboration with artists: Noriko Hisazumi and Fabiana Vigna (exhibition), http://www.bbk.ac.uk/news/exploring-women2019s-imprisonment-through-art