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Phone:: (023) 8059 3418
Email:: D.Gurnham@soton.ac.uk

Professor David Gurnham LLB (Lancaster), PhD (Warwick)

Deputy Head of School and Professor of Criminal Law and Interdisciplinary Legal Studies

David Gurnham is a Professor of Criminal Law and Interdisciplinary Legal Studies within Southampton Law School at the University of Southampton. He came to Southampton as a Reader (Associate Professor) in 2012, having previously been a Lecturer in Healthcare Law and Ethics at the University of Manchester (2005 - 2012), and a Lecturer in Law at the University of Reading (2003 – 2005). His research and teaching reflect a primary interest in law in its contexts, and looks beyond law’s traditional boundaries in order to forge new critical and methodological possibilities.

Centre for Law, Policy and Society (CLPS)

Member

Health Ethics and Law (HEAL)

Associate Member

Research

Responsibilities

Publications

Teaching

Contact

Research interests

Criminal law
Law and Literature
Critical and theoretical approaches to law (including psychoanalysis and feminism)

PhD supervision

I am in principle available to supervise on any topic within my research expertise. I have recently finished supervising Hector Olivas (with Mark Telford) on the legitimacy of prisons privatization in Mexico and the UK, James Thornton (with Mark Telford) on reforms to criminal procedure and fees structures in England and Wales, both of whom passed subject to modest corrections. I am currently supervising Ana Fuentes (with Harry Annison) on public bodies’ responses to human trafficking.

PhD research

PhD (Warwick) 2004: ‘Judicial Rhetoric and Ethical Dilemma: The Role of Liberal Principle in Legal Language’.

Research projects

‘Young People's Perceptions of Sexual Consent: Exploring the implications for policy and practice’. (with Dr Harry Annison and Mr Mark Telford).

We have been awarded funds from the ESRC (Impact Acceleration Account) and the Public Engagement with Research unit to conduct a research and public engagement project on the subject of sexual consent. The project uses qualitative empirical research methods to explore how young people understand consent and gender. We debated our initial findings at a stakeholder roundtable in Southampton with representatives of Hampshire Police, the criminal bar, young people’s and victims’ charities, academics and students in December 2017. Findings from follow-on research will be debated in Winter 2018/19 (see publications tab for links to briefing papers 1 and 2). We plan to publish our findings and analysis in legal academic press in 2019.

Relatedly, my article on Ched Evans, rape myths and ‘the gaze’ will appear soon in the International Journal of Law in Context (see publications tab).

Director of Research, School of Law
Editor in Chief (with Professor Gary Watt, Warwick Law School) of Law and Humanities (Taylor & Francis)
Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the ‘International Journal of Law in Context’ (CUP)
Member of Centre for Law, Policy and Society (CLPS), and an Associate Member of Health Ethics and Law (HEAL).

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Guest Co-Editor: New Criminal Law Review: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal

Edition: New Criminal Law Review: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol 17(1)
(Guest-edited with Imogen Jones)

Articles

Gurnham, D. (2018). Ched Evans, rape myths and Medusa's gaze: a story of mirrors and windows. International Journal of Law in Context, 1-15. DOI: 10.1017/S1744552318000010
Gurnham, D. (2016). A critique of carceral feminist arguments on rape myths and sexual scripts. New Criminal Law Review.
Gurnham, D. (2016). Debating rape: to whom does the uncanny 'myth' metaphor belong? Journal of Law and Society, 43(1), 1-17.
Gurnham, D. (2016). Victim-blame as a symptom of rape myth acceptance? Another look at how young people in England understand sexual consent. Legal Studies, 1-36.
Gurnham, D. (2013). Editorial. Criminalising contagion: ethical, legal and clinical challenges of prosecuting the spread of disease and sexually transmitted infections. Sexually Transmitted Infections, 89(4), 274-275. DOI: 10.1136/sextrans-2013-051156
Gurnham, D. (2013). Editorial. Special 20th anniversary issue of Medical Law International: 'Best interests in an age of human rights'. Medical Law International, 13(1), 3-5. DOI: 10.1177/0968533213478648
Gurnham, D. (2012). Bioethics as science-fiction: making sense of Habermas's 'The future of human nature'. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 21(2), 235-246. DOI: 10.1017/S0963180111000739
Gurnham, D., & Miola, J. (2012). Reproduction, rights and the welfare interests of children: the times they aren't a-changin. King's Law Journal, 23(1), 29-50. DOI: 10.5235/096157612800081196
Gurnham, D. (2012). What role should criminal justice play in the fight against STIs? Sexually Transmitted Infections, 88(1), 4-5. DOI: 10.1136/sextrans-2011-050403
Gurnham, D. (2011). Legal authority and savagery in legal rhetoric: sexual violence and the criminal courts. International Journal of Law in Context, 7(2), 117-137. DOI: 10.1017/S1744552311000024
Gurnham, D. (2011). Parents, children and the porous boundaries of the sexual family in law and popular culture. Global Studies of Childhood, 1(4), 343-353. DOI: 10.2304/gsch.2011.1.4.343

Books

Gurnham, D. (2014). Crime, desire and law's unconscious: law, literature and culture. (a GlassHouse Book). New York, US: Routledge.
Gurnham, D. (2009). Memory, imagination, justice: intersections of law and literature. (Law, Justice and Power). Farnham, GB: Ashgate.

Book Chapters

Gurnham, D., & Ashworth, A. (2015). Revisiting the criminalization of disease. In Pioneering Healthcare Law: Essays in Honour of Professor Margaret Brazier (pp. 268-279). (Bioethical Law and Ethics Library). Abingdon, GB: Routledge.
Gurnham, D. (2013). Plato's fertility clinic: status and identity rhetoric in parenthood disputes. In M. D. Freeman, & F. Smith (Eds.), Law and Language (pp. 356-370). (Current Legal Issues; Vol. 15). Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673667.003.0191
Gurnham, D. (2012). Donor-conception as a 'dangerous supplement' to the nuclear family: what can we learn from parents' stories? In D. Cutas (Ed.), Families: Beyond the Nuclear Ideal (pp. 84-96). (Science, Ethics and Society). New York, US: Bloomsbury Academic.
Gurnham, D. (2012). Risky sex and manly diversions: contours of consent in HIV-transmission and rough horseplay cases. In A. Alghrani, R. Bennett, & S. Ost (Eds.), The Criminal Law and Bioethical Conflict: Walking the Tightrope (Cambridge Bioethics and Law; Vol. 1). Cambridge, GB: Cambridge University Press.

Co-module lead (with Mark Telford), and lecturer for Criminal Law (LAWS1014).
Module convenor and teacher for all classes for ‘Violence and Sex in Law, Literature and Culture’ (LAWS3098)

Professor David Gurnham
Southampton Law School, Building 4 University of Southampton Highfield Southampton SO17 1BJ UK

Room Number: 4/3059

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