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Overview

Biography

ElenaÌý joined the School of Law in January 2000 and was promoted to Reader in Law and Political theory in 2014. From 1995-1999 she was a lecturer at Lancaster University. She holds a PhD from Lancaster University. She has recently been elected to the role of Academic Governor for the period 2020-23. She is one of the founding members of the Association of Critical Legal Scholars.

She has been a member of the steering committee of ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Institute of Gender and Sexuality since 2009 and a member of the steering committee ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Institute of Humanities (20010-14 and 2018-to present).Ìý

She was the School's REF lead until September 2023 and is the Chair of School's REF Working Group and the School's REF Panel and a member of the School's Research Committee. She was a member of the College's REF working Party and School Research Committee. From May 2022- July 2023 she was Assistant Dean for Law.Ìý

Her research holds a sustain interest in critical theory and more particularly in the inter-relation between law, ethics and politics . In Judith Butler:Ethics, Law, PoliticsÌý(Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007) sheÌý explored the legal ethical and political dimensions in Judith Butler's philosophical writings. Her current research focuses of anarchism and her forthcoming book Anarchism the art of living without law (forthcomingÌýAbingdon, UK: Routledge, 2021) exploresÌý how self-managedÌý associations can exist without legal frameworks. She is on the editorial board of the critical legal journal Law and Critique and Counterpress served on the editorial board of Australian Feminist Law Journal. She serves as a certified expert for the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (H.F.R.I).

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Highlights

• <top>

  The first to use Judith Butler’s work as a reading of how the legal subject is formed, this book traces how Butler comes to the themes of ethics, law and politics analyzing their interrelation and explaining how they relate to Butler’s question of how people can have more liveable and viable lives.

• The book draws on archival material that records the life and actions of the anarchist Emma Goldman and her associates, legal documents and writings by classical (Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Peter Krotopkin) and contemporary anarchists (David Graeber, Saul Newman, Ciarra Bottici), as well as contemporary groups such as the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army and Occupy Wall Street. By studying the idiosyncrasies of this art of life, it argues, we are better able to appreciate how anarchism is not some future utopian oriented project, waiting to come into existence after a revolution, but rather exists in parallel to the life and politics offered by the State.

• <bottom>https://www.routledge.com/Disobedience-Concept-and-Practice/Loizidou/p/book/9781138924598

  An edited collection that explores the concept and practice of disobedience through the prism of contemporary ideas and events.

Office hours

Wednesday 5-6 or by appointment through email: e.loizidou@bbk.ac.ukÌý.

Web profiles

Administrative responsibilities

• School REF2021 Lead
• Assistant Dean for Law (2022-23)
• Chair of School's REF2021 Panel and School's REF2021 Working Group
• Member of the School's Research Committee
• Member of College REF2021 Working Group Committee
• Member of College Research Committee
• School Representative to ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú Institute of Humanities Steering Committee

Visiting posts

• Visiting Fellow, , 01 August 2013

Research

Research interests

• Anarchism and Law
• Judith Butler studies
• Political theory and law
• Gender & Sexuality theory and Criminal law
• Critica Legal Theory

Research overview

Elena has a sustain interest in critical theory, critical legal theory and political theory. Whether she is writing about law and film as in , about the philosophy of Judith Butler or anarchist political thought, she is committed in thinking about how we can address current legal and political inequalities, and whether it is possible to have societies at a distance of the state and without being framed by law and theyÌý could deliver to us the worlds that we deserve. In her recent book onÌýÌýshe explores some of the ways that his may be possible.ÌýSome of her ideas about anarchism appeared inÌýÌýÌýepisode 1 of Jeffrey Grossman's (NYT journalist) serialisation of the life of the anarchist . She is currently thinking aboutÌý

Elena is an elected member of the organizing committee of the (2023-6).

Research Centres and Institutes

• Member of the steering committee,
• Steering Committee Member,
• Member,
• Visiting Fellow,

Research clusters and groups

• Member,
• Member ,
• Member,
• Member,

Research projects

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Supervisions within ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú:

4

I welcome supervisions from prospective PhD students who are interested in Critical Legal Studies, Anarchism and law, the work of Judith Butler and Criminal law and Gender.

Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

• CEYLAN YILDIZ

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2013

  Awarded:

  2021

• ABDALGABER MOHAMED

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Jan 2021

  Description:

  This study examines the policies of public-private distinctions in the criminal justice institutions of the modern Muslim state. It argues that the public concept of criminal law and criminal justice is not currently well considered in modern Muslim states, causing ambiguity and vagueness in the public-private distinctions in the criminal justice system. Four relevant countries, namely Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar are referenced as case studies. It also argues that the proper recasting of Shari’a in the criminal justice institutions of the modern Muslim state should start from a theory of criminal justice as a public law that maintains the constitutional values of equality, justice, fairness, and non-discrimination. On the one hand, this public concept of criminal law also means that the state is the only and exclusive authority Walī able to provide the criminal justice service, prosecute the offenses, represent and restitute the victim, and punish the offender. The state should not delegate criminal justice services to private agents and should not normalize the practices of non-state agents punishing other citizens for criminal offenses. On the other hand, the public concept of criminal law also restricts the state from using public institutions to occupy private realms outside the state's remit arbitrarily.

  This study argues that the vagueness in the public-private distinctions has four main aspects. The first aspect is the absence of the public-private distinction, evidenced by defining the concept of the victim’s family, Walῑ. It argued that implementing the public justice approach in Islamic criminal jurisprudence and law would define the victim’s family with the same flexibility as the concept of the offender’s family. The second aspect of the vagueness in public-private distinctions is the state’s normalization, justification, and empowerment of customary-based criminal reconciliations. This study considers these practices as a form of privatization of criminal justice in which the state delegates one of its inherent functions to private agents who prosecute and punish other citizens. The third aspect is how the state uses public institutions and powers to intervene and occupy private realms, for example, by prosecuting magic, witchcraft, and sorcery. The last aspect is represented in the discussion regarding morality-based criminalization, which relies on jumping between public and private realms. These four aspects also demonstrated the impact of this vagueness and ambiguity on vulnerable parties, groups, and people. It argues that the vagueness in the public-private distinctions in the criminal justice institutions of the modern Muslim state enables the empowered groups, the elite, regimes, work sponsors, men, and majorities to gain more privileges, power, dominance, and control over the vulnerable groups such as minorities, workers, females, and foreigners.

  The thesis critically engages with these four aspects to conclude that criminal law and criminal justice services are public and rational institutions that work within the modern state, which has exclusive legitimate power to use violence. The public concept of these institutions means that the constitutional and fundamental human rights of justice, equality, and non-discrimination should be maintained. Last, the proper recasting of Sharīʻah within the criminal justice institutions of the modern state should start from the public and rational characters of criminal laws.

  Awarded:

  2025

• ATHENA MICHALAKEA

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2019

  Awarded:

  2024

• CLAIRE HORN

  Nature of supervision:

  Joint Principal Supervisor, Oct 2016

  Title of thesis:

  Gestation Beyond Mother/Machine: Frameworks for Artificial Wombs, Abortion, and Care

  Awarded:

  2020

Teaching

I have been convening and teaching the undergraduate core module of Criminal Law since 2000. I am currently co-convening the module with Dr Craig Reeves and Dr Susy Menis. I teach the course from a critical perspective, drawing on the historical and gendered aspects of criminal law.

My LLM/MA core module Criminal Law Theory and History looks at the formation of modern criminal law through the writings of the 19th jurist, lawyer and writer James Fitzjames Stephen and its effects on contemporary criminal law. In doing so I attend to the colonial aspects of criminal law.

I co-teach with Professor Adam Gearey the post graduate module, Law, Solidarity and Alternative Economies. Here I focus on the way in which mutual aid project open us up to different economic models, and different economies of exchange.

Teaching modules

• Criminal Law
• Criminal Law Theory and History
• Transformative Lawyering (Level 6)
• Law of the Trial
• Criminal Law (Senior Status)

Publications

Business and community

Media

I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

• Anarchism and Law
• Criminal Law and Sexual Offences
• Critical Theory and Judith Butler