Project 39A To Conduct Annual Lecture Series In Criminal Law On November 22

The theme for this year's lecture is 'The Carceral Politics of Sexual Violence~ Notes on a Political Economy of Criminal Law'.

The lecture will be conducted by Prabha Kotiswaran, Professor of Law and Social Justice King's College London, between 6:30-8:00 pm. She will evaluate the decriminalization of facets of sexual relations such as adultery and sodomy in India, against the increasing number of cases of sexual violence with women and children.

"I will draw on the examples of rape and trafficking to argue that any attempt to break this vicious cycle must theorise the political economy of Indian criminal law anew by accounting for both the processes that lead to the formulation of carceral laws but also how their implementation is refracted by cultures of impunity, informality and bargains leading to both unintended and perverse consequences. I will reflect on how one might retain the proper place of the criminal law without unwittingly supporting the carceral politics of sexual violence."

Professor Kotiswaran is an alumnus of NLSIU, Bangalore and Harvard Law School. She is a renowned scholar of criminal law, feminist legal theory and postcolonial legal studies. She was awarded the SLSA-Hart Prize for Early Career Academics for her first book titled 'Dangerous Sex, Invisible Labour: Sex Work and the Law in India' (Princeton, 2011). Recently, she received critical acclaim for initiating thoughtful conversation on the unintended consequences of feminist legal interventions in the book 'Governance Feminism: Notes from the Field'(Minnesota, 2019).

No entry pass or registration will be required for attending the lecture.

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