… transdisciplinary research, innovative thinking, ethical law…
The Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Law and Discourse was established at McGill University in 2002 with the appointment of Professor Desmond Manderson.
The research undertaken under the auspices of the Chair aims to connect legal understanding to the foundation disciplines of philosophy, history, and literature, and to vital social issues in public policy and cultural studies. For an introduction to the role of transdisciplinary research and pedagogy in the study of law, read '“Desert Island Disks (Ten Reveries in Inter-disciplinary Pedagogy)” (2008) 1 Public Space.
Law and discourse studies the complex social and political dyanmics of the languages of law, and of law as a language. It is the study of the manifold and powerful ways in which form and style, structure and system, influence what law is and says and does. Discourse is language with power, social and politically situated. In the words of Michel Foucault, a study of discourse is "the science of forms, of signification apart from content."
As Canada Research Chair in Law and Discourse, Professor Manderson seeks to reconfigure the field of jurisprudence in the light of changes that contemporary European thought has wrought to the foundation disciplines in the humanities; and to build stronger bridges between the work of theory and the central social debates of the modern world.
Activities of the Chair include: research and writing, supervising research students, organizing readings groups and conferences, developing joint research projects with academics from other disciplines, and sponsoring visiting academics, visiting lectures and publications.
Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas
The Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas (IPLAI) reflects and advances McGill’s commitment to interdisciplinary study in the humanities. IPLAI is dedicated to understanding how the arts and new ideas come into being in a range of settings, and in relation to social, cultural, and institutional practices. It also strives to understand how the “startling unexpectedness” of art and ideas is able to transform the private world of the individual, the greater world of public matters, and the relationship between the two. IPLAI brings together scholars from a range of disciplines and also provides opportunities for artists and scholars to work in collaboration on matters of shared concern. By creating an organized space for serious play among scholarly disciplines and between artists and scholars, the Institute enhances opportunities for leading-edge research.
Professor Desmond Manderson is currently chairing IPLAI.
Read Professor Desmond Manderson's latest article, "Desert Island Disks: Ten Reveries on Inter-Disciplinary Pedagogy in Law", published in Public Space: The Journal of Law and Social Justice, Vol 2 (2008).