A prestigious Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship has been awarded to Gary Watt, Warwick Law School Professor and National Teaching Fellow.

Through the project, Gary will test his theory that law’s activities, especially advocacy and judgment in Common Law courts, are better appreciated as creative and artistic processes of production rather than as scientific processes of fact-finding and discovery of abstract truth.

He will also ask whether this way of appreciating law can help us better understand how judgments are formed in courts of popular opinion through traditional and social media, including furthering our understanding of ‘post-truth politics’, ‘fake news’ and ‘trial by twitter’.

Speaking about the project, Gary said: “I hope this research will encourage legal scholars and law students to take seriously the possibility that law’s activities might be elucidated by the lights of humanities’ scholarship. I think the health of the legal profession, as well as the health of social and political debate, depends on it. I trust that I will return from the fellowship with a few new ideas to share in class.”

Gary is keen for the project to lead to the publication of both books and online resources to encourage general public awareness of how social and political performance persuades us to particular points of view.

Read more.

Pictured: Warwick Law School Professor, Gary Watt.