Annual Jurisprudence Lecture

Glasgow Legal Theory are delighted announce that the 14th Annual Jurisprudence ​public lecture will be held at the University of Glasgow on the 19th June.

This year's lecture, coordinated by Taylor and Francis and the editorial board of Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought, will be delivered by Miranda Fricker of NYU.

Abstract:
Foucault famously traced the history of a form of testimony he labelled ‘avowal’ (aveu)—effectively a social institution of testimony that counts, necessarily, as true. Looking to the present, I will focus on two institutions of testimony, each of which forms part of a system of procedures of criminal justice—one in the UK and the other in the US—and I will analyse them as present-day institutional constructions of avowal. Each practice involves a highly problematic degree of testimonial extraction under unequal power, one ostensibly a technique of investigation, the other ostensibly a technique of rehabilitation. I will offer an analysis of the ethical and epistemic dysfunctionalities of each, and tentatively question whether there is any place for avowal in just institutional processes.