Law and Religion Scholars Network

Extract

On 2 May 2008, the Centre for Law and Religion at Cardiff University launched LARSN – the Law and Religion Scholars Network. This initial meeting, chaired by Professor Norman Doe, Dr Javier García Oliva and Russell Sandberg, brought together nearly 30 scholars working in the area, and would have been attended by a further 21 had diaries permitted. The event began with participants briefly introducing themselves and their areas. This revealed not just the amount of scholarly activity being undertaken in law and religion but also the range of interests. Work was ongoing in areas as diverse as employment law, the law of death, criminal justice, Jewish law, human rights law and constitutional law. A variety of methodological approaches were also being taken, with doctrinal legal scholarship running alongside multidisciplinary work with religious studies, and socio-legal projects. Many of us worked as the sole academic focusing on law and religion issues in a law school, but there were also a number of clusters of scholars developing. As well as the established Centre at Cardiff – celebrating its tenth anniversary this year – research groups are developing at Bristol, Oxford Brookes and Canterbury.