This symposium will think about how narratives of risk are employed in legal and social institutions and how emergent narratives of risk are driving new forms of legal inquiry and ways of thinking about criminal responsibility. It will draw together legal scholars, criminologists, journalists, and narrative theorists to investigate the question of risky character in legal and narrative contexts and in the writing of crime.

Is there a resurgence of character in the present and, if so, how might we account for it in our disciplines? Nicola Lacey argues that this shift has led to a situation where ‘bad’ character is considered not only ‘constitutive of guilt’ but also ‘probative of guilt’ and that ‘character’ might be interpreted as a ‘short cut to proof’ and consequently as symptomatic of political and economic pressures that are changing the shape of law and narrative. Ekow Yankah thinks of these pressures as producing what he terms ‘punishing character’, where ‘flat’ or stereotyped portrayals of certain subjects who are deemed risky creates a situation where there is a clear inference between character and intent.

The symposium will consist of a lecture by Professor Nicola Lacey and two panels on narrative character and legal character that will collectively seek to generate a discussion around these questions. The symposium seeks to drive new and urgent conversations about the imagining of risky character and the materialisation of risk in social and legal contexts today.

Speakers: Samantha Asumadu, Thom Dyke, Lambros Fatsis, Nicola Lacey, Danny Shaw, David James Smith, Findlay Stark

Keynote:  Nicola Lacey 5.15-6.15pm

Organised by Jess Cotton and Clair Wills

For more information: contact Jess Cotton jc2384@cam.ac.uk