The Centre for Feminist Legal Studies invites you to join us for our upcoming lecture on Monday, April 4th. We welcome Professor Jamie Chai Yun Liew for a lecture and discussion: Revisioning Dandelions: Using Literature to Interrogate Legal Constructions of the Foreign Woman.
Dandelions are a powerful metaphor for exhibiting what is at once beautiful, strong and resilient, and the unwanted, dreaded and scorned. I use this metaphor to talk about statelessness, the legal status of being without citizenship. Reflecting on my field work and research on legal barriers to citizenship, I explore creative writing as a tool of not only dissemination of legal research but as a way to explore sociolegal constructions of the Other, foreigner, citizen, kin and visible. I will talk about how my legal research ignited my creative writing in my novel Dandelion and, reciprocally, how the process of creating narrative supported my legal academic writing. I'll use examples of statelessness, narratives and legal categories, labels and terms to illustrate the symbiotic relationship of using story telling to critique particular post-colonial legal structures.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Jamie Chai Yun Liew (she/her) is the author of DANDELION. She is the recipient of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW) Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award. Jamie is also a lawyer, law professor (@uocommonlaw), and podcaster specializing in immigration, refugee and citizenship law. Her podcast, Migration Conversations, features experts and migrants who have experienced immigration systems up close. Her legal scholarship focuses on how law marginalizes migrants, immigrants and stateless persons.
Please note, this event will take place in Room 104 at Allard Hall and will also be livestreamed via Zoom.
For more information, please see the event registration page. Please register for access to the Zoom link.
- Centre for Feminist Legal Studies
- General Public