Professor Marinos Diamantides

Overview

Biography

Marinos Diamantides is Professor of Constitutional Law and Political Science at Birkbeck, University of London. His interdisciplinary research brings together constitutional and public law, political theology, philosophy and literature. A recurring concern is the role of imagination, narrative and theatricality in constituting and legitimising political and legal realities. His more recent work questions the tendency to understand diverse forms of life as expressions of a single political order, while critically examining philosophical attempts to move beyond this tendency.

He studied law in Greece and Spain before moving to the UK, where he obtained his LLM and PhD. He joined Birkbeck's Department of Law in 1995 and has held several academic leadership positions, including Head of Department and Assistant Dean.

His scholarship combines historical, comparative and philosophical approaches to legal and political questions. His earlier research included award-winning work on the significance of Emmanuel Levinas's ethical philosophy for jurisprudence. His subsequent publications have explored political theology, sovereignty and constitutional thought, including Political Theology: Demystifying the Universal (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), co-authored with Anton Schütz, and the co-edited Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Sovereignty (Edward Elgar, 2026).

He has completed two British Academy-funded research projects and one Leverhulme-funded research project.

At Birkbeck, he convenes and teaches undergraduate Constitutional and Administrative Law and teaches constitutional theory at postgraduate level. He has previously taught Medical Law and Ethics and European Union Law.

He has held visiting academic appointments at Kyoto University, the Center for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley, Cardozo School of Law in New York, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Highlights

• Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Sovereignty (Edward Elgar, 2026), co-edited.

  “What sets this volume apart from the usual Euro-American canon is its genuine commitment to sovereignty’s relational history.”

  — Richard Albert, International Forum on the Future of Constitutionalism

  “A towering achievement, bringing together many leading thinkers to address a vexed but vital issue with which politics and constitutions have grappled for centuries. [...] It should be a highly valuable reference point for students and scholars alike.”

  — Stephen Tierney, University of Edinburgh

  Political Theology: Demystifying the Universal (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), co-authored with Anton Schütz.
  

  “In a book of great clarity and power, Diamantides and Schütz unsparingly expose the managerial vocation of the West and, with matching precision, undo the ideological masks by which it tries to cover its impasses.”

  — Giorgio Agamben

  “If you want a brave and insightful glimpse of the way the modern world is continually shaped and reshaped by hidden theologies, then this is the book for you.”

  — James Martel, Law, Culture and the Humanities

• Funded research: Marinos Diamantides has completed two British Academy-funded research projects and one Leverhulme-funded research project.

Office hours

I am happy to meet either online or in person in my office. Just send me an email at m.diamantides@bbk.ac.uk, and we can arrange a mutually convenient time.

Administrative responsibilities

• Coordinator of Visiting and Emeritus Scholars

Visiting posts

• Visiting Scholar, Centre for the Study of Law and Society, UC Berkeley School of Law , 01 January 2014 to 01 April 2014
• Visiting Professor , Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York, USA , 01 August 2014 to 01 December 2014
• Visiting Professor, Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York, USA , 01 August 2013 to 01 December 2013
• Visiting Scholar , Radzyner School of Law, Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, Israel, 01 February 2007 to 01 May 2007
• Visiting Scholar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 01 February 2007 to 01 December 2007
• Visiting Scholar , Faculty of Law, Kyoto University, Japan., 01 June 2014

Professional memberships

• Member of ICON – The international Society of Public Law
  
  

• Fellow of the UK’s Higher Education Academy [Ref. No. PR123938].

Research

Research interests

• Constitutionalism & constitutional theory
• Sovereignty and political theology
• Law, literature and the political imagination
• Ethics and the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas
• Legal and political philosophy
• Comparative and historical approaches to law and politics

Research overview

My research lies at the intersection of constitutional and public law, political and legal philosophy, political theology and literature. It examines how legal and political orders are imagined, constituted and legitimised, and how the concepts through which we understand collective existence shape — and sometimes constrain — our understanding and evaluation of different forms of life.

Constitutionalism, sovereignty and political theology:

A central strand of my research concerns the historical and theological inheritances of modern constitutional and political thought. Drawing on comparative, historical and philosophical approaches, I examine the relationships between sovereignty, legitimacy, religion and political authority, with particular attention to the limitations of universalising accounts of Western political experience.

This work includes critical engagements with Carl Schmitt's political theology and Giorgio Agamben's account of the theological foundations of Western government. It also explores the relationship between religion and constitutionalism across different historical and cultural settings, including Western and Eastern Christianity and Islam.

Selected publications:

• Research Handbook on the Law and Politics of Sovereignty (Edward Elgar, 2026), co-edited with Michel Rosenfeld and Giuseppe Martinico. Includes my chapter 'The Epigenesis of the Sovereign Fantasy: From Political Theology to Relational Exposure', pp. 375–404.
• 'A Postmodern Hetoimasia—Feigning Sovereignty during the State of Exception', in Peter Goodrich and Michel Rosenfeld (eds.), Administering Interpretation: Derrida, Agamben, and the Political Theology of Law (Fordham University Press, 2019), pp. 189–233.
• Political Theology: Demystifying the Universal (Edinburgh University Press, 2017), co-authored with Anton Schütz.
• 'Constitutional Theory and Its Limits: Reflections on Comparative Political Theologies', Law, Culture and the Humanities, 11(1), 2015.
• 'God's Political Power in Western and Eastern Christianity in Comparative Perspective', Divus Thomas (2012).
• 'L'ordre juridique positif et l'anarchie de la foi abrahamique', in Baudouin Dupret (ed.), La charia aujourd'hui (La Découverte, 2012) [in French].
• Islam, Law and Identity (2010), co-edited with Adam Gearey. Includes my chapter 'Shari'a, Faith and Critical Legal Theory'.
• 'Towards a Western-Islamic Conception of Legalism', in Law, Text, Terror (Glasshouse Press, 2006), pp. 95–118.
  

Ethics, jurisprudence and the limits of legal thought:

An earlier strand of my research explored the implications of Emmanuel Levinas's ethical philosophy for jurisprudence, particularly questions of responsibility, suffering, justice and the limits of legal judgment.

Beginning with my award-winning article 'Ethics in Law: Death Marks on a Still Life' (1995), this research examined the ethical assumptions of modern legal thought and the difficulties of responding to singular experiences of suffering through general legal categories.

My subsequent work has brought these concerns into dialogue with constitutional theory and political theology, while critically examining the possibilities and limitations of ethical and philosophical approaches that seek to move beyond established frameworks of political authority.

Selected publications:

• 'Levinas, Agamben and the Crisis of the Modern Constitutional Imagination: Ethics, Political Theology and Crisis Management', Teoria e Critica della Regolazione Sociale, 2(11), 2020, pp. 133–152.
• 'To Judge a Vegetable: Levinasian Ethics and the Morality of Law', in Desmond Manderson (ed.), Essays on Levinas and Law: A Mosaic (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
• Levinas, Law, Politics (Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), edited collection.
• 'From Escape to Hostage', in G. and A. Horowitz (eds.), Difficult Justice: Commentaries on Levinas and Politics (University of Toronto Press, 2006).
• 'In the Company of Priests: Meaninglessness, Suffering and Compassion in the Thoughts of Nietzsche and Levinas', Cardozo Law Review, 24(3), 2003, pp. 1275–1307.
• The Ethics of Suffering: Modern Law, Philosophy and Medicine (Ashgate, 2000).
• 'The Subject May Have Disappeared but Its Suffering Remains', Law and Critique, 11(2), 2000, pp. 137–166.
• 'Ethics in Law: Death Marks on a Still Life', Law and Critique, 6(2), 1995.
  

Law, literature and the political imagination:

An increasingly prominent concern in my research is the role of imagination, narrative and theatricality in shaping legal and political realities. This includes examining how constitutional thought represents collective life, attributes unity to diverse experiences and invests political events with particular meanings and expectations.

My recent work questions the tendency to understand diverse forms of life as expressions of a single political order, while critically exploring philosophical alternatives, including approaches grounded in immanence and ethics.

Literature and theatre are important interlocutors in this research, not simply as illustrations of legal or political ideas, but as ways of questioning the assumptions through which law and politics render different forms of life intelligible.

My current research includes an essay on Aniara, Harry Martinson's science-fiction poem (1956), its operatic adaptation (1959) and its 2018 film adaptation. The project explores the possibilities and limits of constitutional imagination through these contrasting artistic representations of a collective journey.

Selected publications:

• 'Oikonomia', in Peter Goodrich, Daniela Gandorfer and Cecilia Gebruers (eds.), Research Handbook on Law and Literature (Edward Elgar, 2022).
• 'The Long Way to an Un-Disciplined Literature', a review essay on Kostas and Linda Myrsiades' Un-Disciplining Literature: Literature, Law and Culture, Cardozo Studies in Law and Literature (2000).

Supervision and teaching

Teaching

Teaching modules

• Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Constitutional and Administrative Law (Senior Status)
• Public Law (GDL)

Publications