Thomas Giddens

Dr Thomas Giddens LLB MSc PhD AHEA

Lecturer in Law, St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London

Member Socio-Legal Studies Association

Member Society of Legal Scholars

Associate of the Higher Education Academy

Contact Details

Email: thomas.giddens@smuc.ac.uk

Telephone: 02082404371

Postal address: School of Management and Social Science, St Mary’s University College, Waldegrave Road, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, TW1 4SX

Websites:

http://graphicjustice.blogspot.com (website for the Graphic Justice Research Alliance)

http://explodingcanon.blogspot.com (personal academic blog)

Biography and Research Interests

Following his LLB Law (Aberystwyth) and his MSc Criminology with Forensic Psychology (Middlesex), Thom has recently completed his PhD on ‘Comics, Crime, and the Moral Self’ at the University of Exeter in 2012. This thesis focused on Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’s graphic novel Watchmen, and explored issues around how we think about people as responsible beings. Thom has since published aspects of his work and presented papers at a number of conferences, and is currently developing Graphic Justice, a research initiative aimed at bringing academics, practitioners, artists, and other interested parties from across the globe together, and to promote collaboration and development of work exploring the relevance of comics to law and justice.

Research interests: Thom’s current work continues the concern with Graphic Justice. Comics, graphic novels, and manga have had a huge impact of many aspects of popular culture, from cinema and books, to television and the internet. Comics deal with many themes important to law and justice, from criminal justice and morality in superhero narratives, to explorations of all walks of human life in the wide variety of comics beyond this dominant mainstream. The intersection of comics with law and justice is an under-researched field, and Thom’s work aims to promote and develop this rich and important cultural crossover.

Publications

‘Criminal Responsibility and the Living Self’, Criminal Law and Philosophy, in press.

‘Towards a Metaphysics of Comics’, in Cultural Exploration and Formal Expression in the Graphic Novel edited by Jonathan C. Evans and Thomas Giddens (in press, Oxford, ID Press).

‘Comics, Law, and Aesthetics: Towards the use of graphic fiction in legal studies’, Law and Humanities 6(1): 85-109 (2012).

Conference Papers and Talks

‘Criminal Responsibility and the Living Self’, Society of Legal Scholars Annual Conference, University of Bristol, September 2012.

‘Towards a Metaphysics of Comics’, GN1 Conference (Inter-Disciplinary.net), Mansfield College, Oxford, September 2012.

‘Law and Graphic Fiction’, Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, University of West England, Bristol, March 2010.