Kirsten Campbell BA(Hons), LLB(Hons), BLitt, DPhil, Barrister and Solicitor
Kirsten holds degrees from the University of Melbourne, Macquarie and Oxford. Kirsten previously taught sociology at Brunel University, and practised as a commercial litigation lawyer. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Centre for the Study of Law and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. Kirsten is currently the Director of the Research Unit in Global Justice, which studies the legal and ethical implications of contemporary global social change.
Kirsten’s research and teaching are in the fields of contemporary social theory, and the sociology of gender and of law. She has an ongoing interest in methodological issues in feminist and socio-legal research.
Kirsten is currently completing a study of models of subjectivity and sociality in international criminal law, focusing upon the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Kirsten is also working on a comparative socio-legal analysis of transitional justice in Spain and Bosnia, which is funded by the European Research Council. This work draws on her previous research project examining the contemporary legal regulation of armed conflict, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. Kirsten’s current research builds on her earlier work on new forms of subjectivity and social relations in feminist ideas and practices of social justice. Her book, Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology was described as offering ‘a new project for third-wave feminism’ (Feminist Theory).
Teaching
Kirsten is currently Director of Undergraduate Programmes. Her teaching includes the undergraduate option course, ‘Law, Ethics, and Identity’, and core courses in the MA in Gender, Media, and Culture, as well as other core courses across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Kirsten was awarded the Peake Teaching award for teaching excellence.Areas of supervision
Feminist, psychoanalytic and socio-legal theory, theories of subjectivity, war crimes, sociology of conflict, and transitional justice.Professional activities
Kirsten has been an external examiner at the London Consortium and Brunel University. She is a member of the Economic and Social Research Council Peer Review College. Kirsten was a founding editorial member of the Journal of Lacanian Studies and the Australian Feminist Law Journal. She is currently a member of the international research group, ‘Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict’, as well as a member of the London Transitional Justice Network, the AHRC ‘The Future of Testimony’ Interdisciplinary Network, and a research affiliate of the LSE International Humanitarian Law Project.
Research interests
Kirsten’s research explores the contemporary relationship between subjectivity and justice. It also engages with methodological issues in feminist and socio-legal research.
Kirsten’s current major research area develops a new social theory of the models of subjectivity and sociality that inform international criminal justice. This research uses the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as a case study, and focuses upon sexual violence prosecutions. This work builds on her previous research project, which was a socio-legal study of the contemporary legal regulation of armed conflict, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Kirsten’s empirical research in this area focuses upon ‘transitional justice’ mechanisms. Her current project is a comparative socio-legal analysis of transitional justice in Spain and Bosnia, as part of the European Research Council funded project, ‘Spanish Bones, Bosnian Ghosts’, with Dr Sari Wastell, Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths. This builds on their earlier project, ‘The Codification of Trauma in Humanitarian Law’, with Dr Hannah Starman, Institute of Ethnic Studies, Ljubljana, funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation.
This research builds on Kirsten’s earlier work on new forms of subjectivity and sociality in feminist ideas and practices of social justice. Her book, Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology, developed a social theory of feminist transformations of gendered subjects and social relations, and was described as offering ‘a new project for third-wave feminism’ (Feminist Theory).
Research grants
- Bosnian Bones, Spanish Ghosts: Transitional Justice and the Legal Shaping of Memory after Two Modern Conflicts, senior researcher, European Research Council, 2009-2013.
- Regulating Armed Conflict: From the Laws of War to Humanitarian Law, principal investigator, Economic and Social Research Council, 2006 – 2007. Awarded highest grade, ‘outstanding’.
- The Codification of Trauma in Humanitarian Law, International Collaborative Research Grant, project co-director and researcher, Goldsmiths College and Institute of Ethnic Studies, Ljubljana, Wenner Gren Foundation, 2005–2008.
- Law After Eichmann, project co-director, Hanadiv Foundation, Slovenia, 2006.
- Teaching Theory: Seminars on Jacques Lacan, international research collaborator. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, University of Alberta, 2001-2004.
Selected publications
Books
- Jacques Lacan on Law, London: Cavendish, forthcoming 2012
- Testifying to Trauma: The Codification of Trauma in Humanitarian Law , London: Cavendish, forthcoming 2011
- Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology, London and New York: Routledge, 2004
Edited journal special issues
- ‘After ‘68: The Left and Twenty-First Century Political Projects’, co-edited with Brett St Louis, Special Issue, New Formations, 65, 2008.
- ‘Out of Conflict: Change, Peace, Justice’, co-edited with Vikki Bell, Special Issue, Social and Legal Studies, 13(3) 2004
Journal articles
- ‘Victims And Perpetrators of International Crimes’, Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, forthcoming 2012
- ‘Women, Gender, and Conflict: Reflecting upon the Gendered Harms of War’, ASPASIA: International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History, (3) 2009
- ‘The Gender of Transitional Justice: Law, Sexual Violence and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’, International Journal of Transitional Justice 1 (3): 411-432, 2007
- ‘The Balance of Terror: Torture and the War on Terror’, Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities 3: 155-169, 2007
- ‘The Spoils of War: Berlin : The Downfall', Economy and Society, 34(3): 495-507, 2005
- ‘Out of Conflict: Change, Transition and Justice', with Vikki Bell, Social and Legal Studies, 13(3): 299-304, 2004
- ‘The Trauma of Justice', Social and Legal Studies, 13(3): 329-350, 2004
- ‘The Promise of Feminist Reflexivities: Developing Donna Haraway's Project for Feminist Science Studies', Hypatia, 19(1): 162-182, 2004
- ‘Rape as a Crime against Humanity: Trauma, Law and Justice in the ICTY', Journal of Human Rights, 2(4): 507-515, 2003
- ‘Legal Memories: Sexual Assault, Memory and International Humanitarian Law', Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28 (1): 149-178, 2002
- ‘The Politics of Kinship: Antigone's Claim', Economy and Society, 31(4): 642-650, 2002
- ‘The Plague of the Subject: Judith Butler's Psychic Life of Power', International Journal of Sexuality and Gender, 6(1/2): 35-48, 2001, refereed. ISSN 15661768
- ‘The Slide in the Sign: Lacan's Glissement and the Registers of Meaning', Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 4(3): 135-143, 1999
Chapters in edited collections
- ‘From Legitimacy to Legality: The Problem of the Global Legal Form.’ in Chris Thornhill and Samantha Ashenden (eds), Legality and Legitimacy: Normative and Sociological Approaches, eds., Berlin, Nomos, 2010
- ‘Jacques Lacan', Palgrave Guide to Continental Political Thought, Terrell Carver and James Martin eds., London: Palgrave, 2006
- ‘The Plague of the Subject: Subjects, Politics and the Power of Psychic Life', Butler Matters: Judith Butler's Impact on Feminist and Queer Studies Since Gender Trouble, Margaret Breen and Warren Blumenfeldeds., Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004
- ‘Politics, Identities and Research', with Suki Ali, Duncan Branley and Robert James, Researching Society and Culture, Clive Seale ed., London: Sage, 2004 pp. 21-32
- ‘The Pedagogical is the Political: Reconfiguring Pedagogical Mastery', Pedagogical Desire: Transference, Seduction, and the Question of Authorial Ethics, Jan Jagodzinski ed., London and Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002, pp. 74-89.
- ‘New Feminist Communities For The Third Wave', The Politics of Community, Michael Strysick ed., Aurora, CO, Davies, 2002, pp. 221-241.
- ‘Theorizing Possibility: Julia Kristeva and Feminist Epistemology', After the Revolution: On Julia Kristeva, John Lechte and Mary Zournazieds., Sydney: Artspace, 1998, pp. 159-169
Policy-related Publications
- ‘Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’, with Sari Wastell, Wenner Gren Foundation