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

Research interests

• Criminal law
• Law and Humanities
• 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

Justice as escape: from metaphor to experience

Professor Gurnham's current law and humanities research focuses on contemporary 'contact points' between law's physical effects and the metaphors by which notions of justice and fairness are conceived, and explores issues arising from this. The research addresses this contact between the physical and the figurative as a question of theory and also in terms of its real impact in particular contexts and on particular communities. Publication is anticipated in 2021/2.

Law, policy and society at the margins

Professor Gurnham is editing a special issue the International Journal of Law in Context (2021) on how law does and ought to respond to people and communities who find themselves at or near the ‘margin’ of society and its concerns. The issue will engage an interdisciplinary readership of scholars and students who are interested in law and policy from doctrinal, socio-legal and criminological perspectives. It addresses concerns regarding how a focus on the contexts in which marginalisation occurs can better inform our understanding of law and the potential for research to impact upon society and communities.