Bold, unique, and refreshing, the Trinity Journal of Legal and Historical Critique (TLHC) promotes scholarship at the intersection of law, history, and critical theory—the first of its kind not only in Trinity, but in Ireland. Guiding the Journal through its second year, Editors-in-Chief Shannon Watts and Giulia Villa discuss opening up legal studies to the humanities, critiquing law’s structures in a modern world, and crafting a publication that moves beyond academic disciplines and their boundaries.
First and foremost, how did you both get into the job?
Shannon: I met Izzy, one of last year’s editors, in our Critical Perspectives on Law module. The class is heavily based on critical legal studies, which is this critical theory on law that was developed in America in the 1970s, and the main ideas behind it were to challenge the supposed neutrality of the law and to analyse the economic and social effects of law. We really bonded over this, and we spoke a lot about the themes of the class. At that stage, she already had the idea for the Journal, and we just really aligned on its themes. So when myself and Giulia were asked by the previous editors to take on the job after some conversations together about the Journal, it kind of felt very natural; I took over the law side of things, while Giulia covered the humanities.
The TLHC is quite an unconventional legal journal, in that it challenges the distinction between law and the humanities. Why is this such an important part of the Journal’s editorial vision?
Giulia: In terms of Trinity’s other publications and journals, there seems to be somewhat of a perceived separation between law and the humanities. We have to do a lot of promotion to ensure that the word “legal” in the Journal’s title doesn’t scare away students from submitting and from engaging, because there’s this supposed unique and inaccessible set of skills and knowledge and expertise related not only to law as an academic field, but also as a professional field. The whole idea of the Journal is to present law not as a discipline with a set of rules and concepts that are uniquely the domain of people who study law, but as one of the humanities with which everyone can engage.
Shannon: Law and the humanities are such important disciplines, and I think that you learn such important yet distinct skills from each of them. The aim of the Journal is to put these together and create a new frame of analysis that everyone can engage in. It’s such a common phenomenon that people who are good at humanities subjects in school are told that they should study law. Why is that? What is that connection? I think that intersection is what’s so important, and that’s what we’re interested in exploring in the Journal.
It’s certainly something new in Trinity, isn’t it? Its focus on tackling so many relevant, contemporary issues is striking, too.
Giulia: With law, there is this sort of perception that there is something above everything that can tell right from wrong. However, it’s quite striking that nowadays, it looks like this system is not exactly in place—and possibly cannot even be in place. We really see that a lot of lines are very blurred – if not fully misplaced – and I think it is so important to challenge the concept of legality in a time where the history that we are living through is itself challenging the concept of legality. It’s very important to observe the patterns and connections of history, remaining critical and thinking about the law not as something static and set in stone, but rather as something that was developed by certain people with a certain point of view, with a certain agenda.
Shannon: If you look at our world today, for example, in an era of globalisation and overlapping systems of law, the idea of law as a self-contained field of study no longer really works. Law’s typical self-referential frame of analysis cannot explain all the issues happening in the international legal order today. I think this disconnect shows how closely connected law is with politics, and with power more generally – something that this journal aims to critique.
You’ve mentioned before that the Journal is about critiquing law from outside of law. What does this mean, to move beyond the traditional scope and paradigms of law as an academic field?
Shannon: As someone who was always interested in social justice and politics, I found going into a law degree quite frustrating, in that the way we’re taught to critique the law can be very insular. I think any law student would be familiar with the doctrines of proportionality and reasonableness—they’re how we’re taught to critique the law, but they come from within the law’s own structures. This Journal aims to provide an outside critique of the law, and we do that through the lens of critical theory, so that could mean feminist theory, Marxist theory, postcolonial theory, and so on, and I think what this does, is it allows us to look at the law from an outside lens and ask ourselves the questions, who is law serving, and what system is it upholding?
It’s bilingual, too! What’s it like to strike a balance between Irish and English as Editors?
Giulia: We definitely want to avoid doing bilingualism as a sort of tokenistic thing. We want the Journal to be bilingual in the sense that the space of conversation that it creates can be a space that can be accessed both through English and through Irish.
The diverse backgrounds of Volume I’s contributors were really notable. It seems that there’s a real focus at the Journal on reaching out to different disciplines and universities.
Shannon: We are really looking to have a wider appeal for the Journal. We want it to be broader than just the Trinity sphere, to explore more than just the Irish experience or the Irish context.
Giulia: Even in our editorial board, we have open applications not only within Trinity, but also beyond Trinity, and we’re delighted to collaborate not only with undergraduate students, but also with postgraduate students and people who have recently graduated. Our submissions are open to people from all disciplines and universities because we believe that matters related to legality and norms can be approached from so many different angles
