Law School

Honorary Professor William MacNeil

FAAL
Professor, Honorary
TC Beirne School of Law
Professor William MacNeil

Professor William MacNeil, FAAL, is an Honorary Professor of Law at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland. A former dean of law at both Southern Cross University and the Griffith Law School, he held professorial chairs at each – notably as the inaugural The Honourable John Dowd Chair in Law at SCU – as well as academic appointments at Victoria University (Melbourne), the University of Hong Kong and the London School of Economics.

Trained in both literature (Toronto) and law (Dalhousie, London, Columbia), his most recent book, Novel Judgements; Legal Theory as Fiction, won the Penny Pether Prize for Scholarship in Law, Literature and the Humanities. He is a founding editor of the book series, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and the Humanities, the Co-Managing Editor of Polemos: A Journal of Law, Literature and Culture and Senior Editorial Consultant for Legalities: The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Law and Society.

He has held visiting appointments at Amherst, Birkbeck London, Helsinki, Hong Kong Shue Yan, IDC Herzliya, Ljubljana, McGill, Erasmus Rotterdam, Sydney, Texas at Austin, and Tsinghua. Professor MacNeil is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and a former Chair of the Council of Australian Law Deans.

Publications and research

Books

  • Novel Judgements: Legal Theory as Fiction, London: Routledge, 2012.
  • Lex Populi: The Jurisprudence of Popular Culture, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007

Refereed journal articles

  • ‘Introduction: Law in End Times: A North/South Collaboration’, (2021) 15 Polemos: Journal of Law, Literature and Culture 1, pp 1-3.
  • ‘Waldo’s Beautiful Things: Possession and Possessing in Otto Preminger’s Laura’, 2021, Crime Fiction Studies, vol. 2, issue 1, pp. 1-14.
  • ‘Boundary, Crossing, Pathway: Margaret Davies’ Province of Jurisprudence Un-Determined’, Book Symposium on Margaret Davies’Law UnLimited: Materialism, Pluralism and Legal Theory inAustralian Journal of Legal Philosophy (2018) 43, pp. 135-140.
  • ‘Lacanian ink and leather “down under”: Queensland’s “bikie” legislation and its crimes of fashion’, Griffith Law Review (2017) 26:4, pp. 615-631, published on-line, January 2019 and appeared in print March 2019.
  • ‘The Litigating Dead: Zombie Jurisprudence in Contemporary Popular Culture’, NoFo: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Law and Justice (2017) 14: pp. 108-123.
  • ‘His Dark Legalities: Intellectual Property’s Psychomachia in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy’ , Liverpool Law Review (2017) 38: pp. 11-31.
  • ‘Let the Right Law In: True Blood, the Twilight Saga and The Passage as Lex Vampirica’, in Fables of Law: Fairy Tales in a Modern Context, eds. D. Carpi & M. Leiboff in Law and Literature, eds. D. Carpi & K Stierstorfer, vol. 13, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016, pp. 331-354.
  • ‘Brokeback’s Bareback: Queering Lex Populi’ 2015, Law, Text, Culture, vol. 19, pp. 194-230. ‘Troubling Waters: Speaking (of) Forbidden (Legal) Subjects: Symposium in Honour of Penny Pether’, eds., J. Pugliese & J. Kramer.
  • ‘Machiavellian Fantasy and the Game of Laws’ 2015,Critical Quarterly, vol. 57, issue 1, April, pp. 34-48.
  •  ‘From Rites to Realities (and Back Again): The Spectacle of Human Rights in the Hunger Games’ 2015, UCIrvine Law Review, vol. 5, pp. 483-498.
  • (with Salecl, Renata) 'Waxing Lacanian', 2013,Griffith Law Review, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 269 - 274
  • ‘Taryn’ with the Negative: Simon, Hypervisibility and the Photography of Judgement’ 2010, Eyeline: Contemporary Visual Arts, vol.72, pp. 50-53.
  • (with Davies, Lynda & Black, Christine), 'Galactic Jurisprudence: In Space, No One can Hear you Litigate', 2007,Law, Culture and the Humanities, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 358 - 360
  • ‘PreCrime Never Pays! Law and Economics in Minority Report’ 2005, 19 Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies vol. 9, issue 2, Spring, pp. 201-221.
  • ‘One Recht to Rule Them All! Law’s Empire in the Age ofEmpire’ 2004 , The Aesthetics of Law and Culture: Text, Images, Screens, eds. Peter Rush and Andrew Kenyon in Studies in Law, Politics and Society, vol. 34, eds. A. Sarat, P. Ewick Elsevier Science Ltd., Oxford, pp. 279-303.
  •  ‘You Slay Me! Buffy as Jurisprude of Desire’ 2003, Cardozo Law Review, vol. 24, issue 6, pp. 2421-2440.
  • ‘Kidlit as Law and Literature: Harry Potter and the Scales of Justice’ 2002, Law and Literature, vol. 14, issue 3, pp. 545-564.
  •  ‘A Tale of Two Trials: Revolutionary Enjoyment, Liberal Legalism and the Sacrifice of Critique in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities’ 2000, 22 Studies in Law, Politics and Society, eds. A. Sarat & P. Ewick, Elsevier Science Ltd., Oxford, pp.77-102.
  •  ‘Beyond Governmentality: Retributive, Distributive and Deconstructive Justice in Great Expectations’ 1999,Australian Feminist Law Journal, vol. 12, pp. 98-117.
  • ‘Taking Rights Symptomatically:Jouissance, coupure, object petit a’ 1999,Griffith Law Review, vol. 8, issue1, pp. 134-151.
  •  ‘The Monstrous Body of the Law: Wollstonecraft vs Shelley’ 1999,Australian Feminist Law Journal, vol. 12, pp. 21-41.
  •  ‘John Austin or Jane Austen?The Province of Jurisprudence Determined in Pride and Prejudice’ 1998, Law, Text, Culture vol. 4, issue 2, pp. 1-35.
  • ‘Law’s Corpus Delicti: The Fantasmatic Body of Rights Discourse’ 1998, Law and Critique, vol. 9, pp. 37-57.
  •  ‘Enjoy Your Rights! Three Cases from the Postcolonial Commonwealth’, 1997, Public Culture, vol. 9, pp. 377 – 393.
  •  ‘Living On: Borderlines - Law/History’ 1995, Law and Critique, vol. 6, pp. 167-191.

Book chapters

  • ‘Promethean Longing: Ridley Scott’s Speculative Legalism’, 2019, Law and the Humanities: Cultural Perspectives, eds., C.Battisti & S. Fiorato, DeGruyter, Berlin, pp. 523-36.
  • ‘The Litigating Dead: Zombie Jurisprudence in The Walking Dead, World War Z and The Rising’, 2019, in Law and the New Media: West of Everything, eds., C. Delage, P. Goodrich & M. Wan, EUP, Edinburgh, pp. 138-155.
  • ‘Machiavellian Fantasy and the Game of Laws: Rex, Sex and Lex in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire’ in K. Crawley & TD. Peters, eds., 2017, Envisioning Legality: Law, Culture and Representation, Routledge, London, pp. 96-118.
  • ‘Popular Culture’s Lex Vampirica: The Law of the Undead in True Blood, the ‘Twilight’ saga and The Passage’ 2015, Cultural Legal Studies: Law’s Popular Cultures and the Metamorphosis of the Law, eds., M. Leiboff & C. Sharp, Routledge, London, pp. 231-251.
  • ‘Popular Culture and Jurisprudence’ 2015, Law and Popular Culture in Australia, eds M. de Zwart, B. Richards, S. LeMire, Lexis-Nexis, Sydney.
  • ‘PreCrime Never Pays! Law and Economics in Minority Report’ 2014, Legal Theory and the Humanities, vol. 5, eds. P Goodrich & M del Mar in Ashgate Library of Essays in Contemporary Legal Theory: Second Series.
  • ‘”No sacrifice is too great for the Cause!”: Cause(less) Lawyering and the Legal Trials and Tribulations of Gone with the Wind’ 2008, The Cultural Lives of Cause Lawyering, eds A. Sarat and S. Scheingold, Cambridge UP, pp. 27-55.
  • ‘”It's the vibe”: The Common Law Imaginary Down Under’ 2004, Law’s Moving Image, eds. L. Moran, I. Christie, E. Sandon, E. Loizidou, Cavendish, London, pp. 30-44.
  • ‘Righting and Difference’ 1992, Human Rights in Hong Kong, ed. R. Wacks Oxford University Press, Hong Kong, pp. 86-118.

Book reviews

  • ‘Honni van Rijswijk, Breeder (Ashland, Ore, USA: Blackstone Publishing, 2021)’, 2021 Legalities: The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Law & Society vol 1, issue 2.
  • ‘Ghostbusting Crime’s Phantasms: A Review of Peter Hutchings’ 2007, “ The Criminal Spectre in Law, Literature and Aesthetics: Incriminating Subjects ‘ Media & Arts LR, vol. 7, issue 1, 81-85.

Edited works

Journals

  • Co-Managing Editor, ‘Law in End Times: A North/South Collaboration’, (2021) 15 Polemos: Journal of Law, Literature and Culture 1.
  • Co-editor, Special Issue ‘Galactic Jurisprudence: The Law and Science Fiction’ (2007) Law, Culture & the Humanities: An Interdisciplinary Journal, co-eds., L. Davies & C. Morris, vol. 2, issue 3.
  • Co-editor Special Issue ‘Law’s Cultural Mediations’ (2002), Griffith Law Review, co-ed., P. Hutchings, vol. 10, issue 2.
  • General Issue, 2000, Griffith Law Review, vol. 9. issue 1.

Books and book series

  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: T. Peters, A Theological Jurisprudence of Speculative Cinema: Superheroes, Science Fictions and Fantasies of Modern Law (Edinburgh UP, 2021)
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: D. Matthews, Earthbound: The Aesthetics of Sovereignty in the Anthropocene (Edinburgh: EUP, 2021)
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: M. Lopez-Lerma, Sensing Justice through Contemporary Spanish Cinema (Edinburgh: EUP, 2021).
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: I. Ward, The Play of Law in Modern British Theatre (Edinburgh: EUP, 2021)
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: C. McCarthy, Outlaws and Spies: Legal Exclusions in Law and Literature (Edinburgh: EUP, 2020).
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: E. Sheley, Criminality and the Common Law Imagination in the 18th and 19th Century (Edinburgh: EUP, 2020).
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: K.I. Baxter, Imagined States: Law and Literature in Nigeria (Edinburgh: EUP, 2019).
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: J. Gaakeer, Judging from Experience: Law, Praxis, Humanities (Edinburgh: EUP, 2019).
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities: P. Goodrich, Schreber’s Law: Jurisprudence and Judgment in Transition (Edinburgh: EUP, 2018).
  • Series Editor, Edinburgh Critical Studies in Law, Literature and Humanities, K. Tranter, Living in Technical Legality: Science Fiction and Law as Technology (Edinburgh: EUP, 2018)

Encyclopedia and dictionary entries

  • Encyclopedia entries on ‘Law and Literature’, ‘Law and Film’, ‘Law and Television’ 2008, The Oxford Companion to Law, eds, for P. Cane & J. Conaghan, Oxford UP.
  • Dictionary entries on ‘Constitution’ and ‘Constitutional Convention’, 2003, Canadian Law Dictionary, ed John Yogis, Barrons.

Student

  • ‘‘Rape, Sexual Assault and Bill C-53’ 1982, The Ansul, 10-13, Dalhousie Law Students Association, 1981; reprinted, Crown Counsels’ Review Saskatchewan.

Other

  • ‘Tribute by William MacNeil: Vale Peter Fitzpatrick’, 2020 Law, Culture and the Humanities vol.16, issue 3, p. 350.