Meet the academic: Victoria Brooks

Posted on: 6 January 2015
By: wyattr1
No Comments »
Filed under: Meet the academics, Uncategorized

Please describe yourself and your role in a few sentences?

I am a Lecturer in Law and Doctoral Researcher at the School of Law. I teach a combination of modules (through a variety of different methods) across the LLB and GDL, including Tort, Mooting, Philosophy of Law and Law of the Environment. My teaching and my research are radical and interdisciplinary, theoretical and applied.

What is your area of academic interest?

My PhD in progress is Deleuzian and attempts to examine laws in spaces of sexuality, particularly the coast. My philosophical interests concern the relation between law and immanence, as well as the legalities of the material body and its folds. I am also interested in the space and performance of law, particularly the courtroom, and how bodies and the materiality of the space produce and affect the act of judgment.

Please tell us a bit about the teaching that you are involved in?

I teach both traditional legal disciplines, together with more radical and theoretical approaches to law. I like to make my sessions as interactive and inclusive as possible, as well as playing with the spatial dynamics of the classroom, in addition to integrating visualisation and technology into the classroom as teaching aids. I currently teach Tort law at undergraduate level, as well as the Graduate Diploma in Law, in addition to Law of the Environment on the LLB.

What was your first job?

My first job was as a Legal Secretary in a law firm back in 2001.

Where did you work before coming to Westminster?

Following my first job as a Legal Secretary, I then worked my way up to being a Paralegal in various other law firms before deciding to come to the University of Westminster to study my LLB in 2009. In my final year, I was inspired by my dissertation supervisor (now my PhD supervisor) to undertake a PhD at Westminster.

What has been the highlight of your career to date?

The highlight of my career so far has been a completely electric seminar that I did for Law of the Environment last year, which I delivered on Deleuze and his conceptualisation of immanence and its relation to law. The students were amazing, completely engaged and helped in both ‘drawing’ the concept of immanence and its relation to law, as well as helping to build a virtual ‘word cloud’ of what immanence means to them. It is a highlight because ideas flew between all of us, meaning that all of us were inspired, and we were able to see the concept growing and building throughout the session. I was left buzzing for days afterwards and the pictures we drew are displayed in my office to remind me of this inspirational seminar!

What advice would you give students during their studies and after graduation?

To keep an open mind, to seek inspiration, to wander.

What advice would you give students considering studying this subject?

To take modules that will challenge your way of thinking and to think creatively.

What are your interests/leisure activities?

Reading, walking, long baths and peppermint tea.