You can get a sense of what I might be talking about in this blog post on my time in the Bristol Theatre Archives theatrecollection.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2024/08/28/p...

Looking ahead to what's coming up this month, I'll be speaking at Durham Cathedral with my colleagues Henry and @benedictdouglas.bsky.social about Magna Carta (1225) as part of the ongoing exhibition

As #Project2025 's manifesto continues to be implemented by the #Trump Administration Blogs by me & @ruthhoughton.bsky.social verfassungsblog.de/reading-proj... criticallegalthinking.com/2025/06/02/p... on (un)democracy & blueprints to dismantle constitutions newrepublic.com/post/201249/...

so pleased to see these articles by Dan Swain, Flora Renz, Kimberly Hutchings, Martin Coward and Debbie Lisle, and Maša Mrovlje... with more to follow

Articles for the Special Issue on Utopia and Failure are now available on FirstView in the European Journal of Social Theory See Irretrievable failure: Life in the ruins of utopian dreaming by Martin Coward and Debbie Lisle journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

So it's very exciting to stumble across this episode of @lrb.co.uk Close Readings, where the focus is also on Leonora Carrington's "The Hearing Trumpet"

In the Fury Archives (which I reviewed) Richards discusses Leonora Carrington's "The Hearing Trumpet" www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

In November @ncl-congov.bsky.social will host a seminar on digital & environmental constitutionalism. Excited to witness Li, Marie and @nifemiadesina.bsky.social bring their ideas together.

It was fantastic to bring together @whiterxbbit.bsky.social @cristyclark.bsky.social Aislinn Fanning & Nikki Godden-Rasul (shout out to coauthors) to explore questions of utopia as method within law and legal studies. We left with lots of reflections and a stunning reading list of sci-fi novels!

Methodologies Symposium Day 2: Dr. Nikki Godden-Rasul and Dr. Ruth Houghton jointly delivered a presentation on the use of Utopianism and Speculative Visionary Fiction as toolkits and methods for Abolition Feminist research.

Methodologies Symposium Day 2: Dr. Aislinn Fanning, explored the use of Utopian law-making to re-imagine feminist equality law on the island of Ireland.

Methodologies Symposium Day 2: Dr. Cristy Clark delivered an excellent presentation on the politics and methodology of utopian research.

Methodologies Symposium Day 2: Dr. Zoe Tongue took us on a journey as we explored Reproductive Utopias.

...featuring our very own Dr Zoe Tongue! @whiterxbbit.bsky.social

This was such a beautifully curated panel by @ruthhoughton.bsky.social within a beautifully organised two day Methodologies Symposium. I’m so grateful for the experience. Thank you to everyone involved. 🙏🏻

In which I admit I was wrong and @ruthhoughton.bsky.social was right…

Day 2 of our Methodologies Symposium has kicked off here at Newcastle Law School with a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Ruth Houghton. Drawing on their own methodologies, the panelists explore ‘Prefigurative Legalities and Utopia as Method’

Methodologies Symposium Day 1: Our third panel discussion, chaired by Nifemi Adesina, a Doctoral Researcher at Newcastle Law School, explored two key ideas: Law and technology and Law as technology.

NCL Law Methodologies Symposium Day 1: Dr. Matilde Arvidsson curated a fascinating workshop on the use of knitting as a methodology within the Anti-surveillance space.

Kinda really enjoyed reading through the proofs for the chapter I co-wrote with Kavi Abraham on 'Global Democracy' for the Research Handbook on Global Governance share.google/MAlM6E7kpQBc...

Methodologies Symposium Day 1: Dr. Paola Zichi discussed a very timely approach to archival research within International Law in the presentation ‘Dreaming A Global Feminist Archive: Palestine, International Law and Abolitionist Praxis’

Shout-out to @arabellalaw.bsky.social for still fighting this (good) fight more than a decade after she first raised some gentle alarm bells about how outside of the EU we'd have a real (representative democracy/accountability/oversight) problem on this front. She has not been proven wrong (!)

The first panel discussion is under way, chaired by Professor Ian Ward. The panelists draw on their own methodologies, discussing Legal histories, the archive and memory.

Fast approaching! On 15th October, see Henry Jones @durham-university.bsky.social Ruth Houghton @ruthhoughton.bsky.social & Benedict Douglas @benedictdouglas.bsky.social reflect upon Magna Carta, chaired by Thom Brooks @thombrooks.bsky.social. Tickets: durhamcathedral.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/...

Delighted to see my article “Fail better: Utopia, Rosa Luxemburg, and learning from failure” published in the European Journal of Social Theory. It‘s available here open access: doi.org/10.1177/1368...

It‘s part of the Utopia and Failure special issue, special thanks to guest editors Mathias Thaler, @davinacooper.bsky.social and @ruthhoughton.bsky.social for including me in this conversation and their helpful comments along the way.

Really excited to be chairing a panel on Utopia as Method next week as part of the Newcastle Law School Methodologies Symposium on 24-25 September 2025

Great to be in London for the final workshop as part of the Utopia and Failure Network. Today we're thinking about the future of Utopian studies.

Our ConGov stars💫 Adam Rowe and @ruthhoughton.bsky.social just published a fascinating article:Rowe, Adam and Houghton, Ruth. "Authoring the Nation: Madame de Staël and the Literary Origins of the State" Pólemos, vol. 19, no. 2, 2025, pp. 281-307. doi.org/10.1515/pol-...

I have a Chapter in the new collection The Contemporary Reader of Feminist International Relations ed by Catherine Goetze & Khushi Singh Rathore It proposes a '#feminist treaty interpretation' as a way of worlding women into #internationalrelations & #law 1/2 www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

New article written with Adam Rowe as part of our studies on Madame de Staël. "Authoring the Nation" in a special issue of Polemos on law and literature www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...

Great fun today hanging out in the virtual exhibition space Heather McKnight is creating as part of the AHRC Utopia and Failure Network to display the outputs of the Academic Care Cafe we hosted in September 2024.

Utopia and Failure network blog post by Miranda, Bethan and Mack which focuses on creative methods. A reflection on zine-making and speculative climate justice futures failingbetter.sps.ed.ac.uk/blog/explori...

Wrote a piece - with Matt Nicholson - on whether dualism provides an effective guide to, or description of, the UK's relationship with international laws (tl;dr summary: not really). It will be coming out in the CLJ in due course, but you can read it *now* here: www.cambridge.org/core/service...

If ghostbots are involved in trials, if they're being used for law reform projects, do we need to ask whether digital ghosts would have constituent power? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

There are certain spots, places, views where it is easier to think and to write. The Durham University Library has been my "go to" location for when the writing gets hard for 12yrs now.

Write up about the exhibition for Magna Carta and the forthcoming panel where Henry, Benedict and I will be speaking: www.palatinate.org.uk/durham-cathe...

It has been fun to think about feminist approaches to constituent power within Global Constitutionalism!

I am delighted to say that Lars Vinx and I have signed a contract with @universitypress.cambridge.org for our Handbook on the Limits of Constituent Power. The aim of the Handbook is to shed much-needed critical light on the concept and practice of constituent power. @cambridgelaw.bsky.social

Durham Law is hiring a 3yr career development fellow in public law! Some lovely ppl here: @jessieblackbourn.bsky.social @lizaoloughlin.bsky.social @seshauna.bsky.social @rogermasterman.bsky.social @dkagiaros.bsky.social @nataliesedacca.bsky.social ... and @aileenmcharg.bsky.social rb.gy/ybcbpf

Must-see Magna Carta event at Durham Cathedral on 15th October : Henry Jones @durham-university.bsky.social, @ruthhoughton.bsky.social & @benedictdouglas.bsky.social on Magna Carta's contemporary relevance, chaired by @thombrooks.bsky.social. Tickets: durhamcathedral.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/...

Just got word that Adam Rowe and I have had our article on Madame de Staël and constitutionalism accepted! I've been musing away on de Staël since 2017, but with Adam's expertise, the project really came to life! Can't wait to see where we next this salonairess next! 😁

Fantastic discussions by Jonathan Joseph, Gulshan Khan and Mark Wenman in Durham for the Global Policy Institute workshop on 'The Resilience of Global Democracy in Times of Global Disorder'

It was fantastic to host @rcecoleman.bsky.social as part of the Practical Utopias: A Creative Methods Workshop in Newcastle in June! A snapshot of my own creation:

Last June, the utopians of Newcastle gathered to join Rebecca Coleman from Bristol in a creative workshop on utopias. Read about the "messes" we made in this blog for the AHRC network on Utopia and Failure: failingbetter.sps.ed.ac.uk/blog/practic...

Delighted to be part of the ReConNet Network on constitutional law and theory. sites.google.com/view/reconne...

A new blog post where I ask: "In a technological era where the dead are being uploaded and saved online, [do] these digital ghosts have constituent power?"

"What would the founding fathers say?" If we could ask them... digi-con.org/what-would-t...

An Introduction to the Global Legal Studies LLB @lawresearch-ncluk.bsky.social www.youtube.com/shorts/oe5OQ...