Dr Bela Bonita Chatterjee

PhD Supervision Interests

Dr Chatterjee welcome expressions of interest from potential doctoral students in the following areas:

Socio-Legal studies, in particular:

Gender, Sexuality and Law

Film/Media and the Law

Professional Role

Lecturer in Law

Research Interests

Dr Chatterjee's work concentrates on interrogating transdisciplinary aspects of cyberlaw, if possible from a feminist perspective, with particular emphasis on gender, sexuality and sexual expression/pornography. She is also interested in identity and the law as broadly conceived. Her recent research has included:

• Legal interpretations of consensual sadomasochism in the sphere of employment law and human rights 
• A critical review of recent changes to encryption law and policy 
• An analysis of encryption law in relation to sex offenders and child pornography

Should you be unable to locate her research please email her at b.chatterjee@lancaster.ac.uk

Qualifications

(1997) LL.B (Hons), Leicester University (First Class)

(1998) LL.M Brunel University (Child Law and Policy)

(2001) Ph.D Brunel University (Cyberpornography, Cyberidentity and Law)

Additional Information

Awards 

2013 LawCareers.Net Law Lecturer of the Year Award 2013 : Nominee

2013 Oxford University Press Law Teacher of the Year Award : Finalist

2006 Lancaster University Sir Alistair Pilkington Teaching Prize : Winner

PhD Supervisions Completed

Christiana Markou

Submitted: PhD: 04095684

Project title: Consumer Software Agents in the Online Buying Process: Risks, Issues and the EU Legal Response

Supervisor 45%

1/01/05 ? 3/11/11

PhDs Examined

External Examiner at Manchester Metropolitan University, School of Law

Additional Information

Conference Activities 

Keynote Speeches

B. Chatterjee, (2004) '"Off the Map":Gender, Sexuality, Cartography and Law'

AHRC Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality Colloquium, 'Text and Terrain: Legal Studies in Gender and Sexuality', University of Kent, Canterbury

Invited Seminar Papers

B. Chatterjee (2011) 'Briefing on Contemporary Encryption law and policy' (Invited Academic Speaker) #CSC2011 Cyber Security Conference 2011, School of Computing and Communications/Infolab 21/ICT KTN

B. Chatterjee, (2006) '(Gay) Pride and Prejudice: Sexuality and the law of Defamation' Instutite for Women's Studies, Lancaster University

B. Chatterjee, (2005) 'Law and the Cybercity', University of Westminster

B. Chatterjee, (2003) 'Back(s)lash: Politicising Cyberlaw', Lancaster University

B. Chatterjee, (2002) 'Obscene/Online - policing adult obscenity', Colloquium on Cybercrime, University of Leeds

B. Chatterjee, (2001) 'The League of Gentlemen: Thoughts on Feminism and Cyberlaw', Institute for Women's Studies, Lancaster University

B. Chatterjee & H. Quirk, (2001) 'Motivation'- Socio-Legal Studies Annual Postgraduate Conference, Birkbeck

B. Chatterjee, (2000) 'Excess Baggage? A response to Nina Wakeford's lecture Handbag.com and other sites of 'real' queerness on the Net' , Performing Virtualities Conference, Windsor

B. Chatterjee, (2000) 'Uneasy Tensions: Critical Race theory and Female Genital Mutilation',Colloquium on religion, spirituality, corporeal change and the legal order, Oxford Brookes University

Additional Conference/Seminar Papers

B. Chatterjee (2013) 'Eyeballing Alcock', a paper/performance for Law and the Senses, University of Westminster, The Pavillion, London. 

B. Chatterjee (2012) 'Cyberwarfare: Challenges for International Law' International Law Group, Lancaster University.

B. Chatterjee (2011) 'Encryption and Child Protection: A 21st Century Dilemma' 9th International Cyberspace Conference, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.

B. Chatterjee (2011) 'RIPA Remixed: The Curious Morphology of Encryption Provisions' Faculty of Science and Technology, Lancaster University

B. Chatterjee (2011) 'More Makeovers than a 90s Boy Band: The ongoing transformation of RIPA encryption provisions' Lancaster University Law School Work in Progress Series, Lancaster University

B. Chatterjee (2011) 'Unlocking Contemporary UK Encryption Law and Policy' BILETA Conference, Manchester Metropolitain University.

B. Chatterjee (2010) 'Sadomasochism, Law, Technology', Paper for the Centre for Gender and Womens' Studies Research Day, Lancaster University.

B. Chatterjee (2010) 'Sadomasochism, Law, Space and Technology', Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, Bristol UWE

B. Chatterjee (2008) 's. 6 Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill (Extreme Pornography) : A discussion', Lancaster University Law School Work in Progress Series, Lancaster University

B. Chatterjee, (2004) 'Sisters in Crime: A comparative analysis of Anglo-Canadian obscenity law' Anglo-Canadian Perspectives on Gender, Sexuality and Law Conference, British Association of Canadian Studies, Legal Studies Group, Canada House, London

B. Chatterjee, (2002) 'In cyberspace nobody knows I'm a feminist', Gender, Sexuality and Law II Conference, Keele University

B. Chatterjee, (2000) 'Razorgirls and Cyberdykes - Tracing Cyberfeminism' Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, Queen's University Belfast

B. Chatterjee, (1999) 'Future Flesh: Misshapen things to come' Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, Loughborough University

B. Chatterjee, (1999) 'Tertium Non Datur - Missing Thirds and the Alchemy of Utopias' Critical Legal Conference, Birkbeck,

Invited Lectures and Conference Administration

Invited Lectures

B. Chatterjee, (2003) 'Feminism and pornography', Reading University

B. Chatterjee, (2001) 'The Porno Paradox: Lessons from the Field in Cyberpornography and E-Commerce' and 'Slugs and Snails and Bits and Bytes: Thinking Gender in Internet Law', University of Gothenburg

B. Chatterjee, (2001) 'Cyberidentities, Cyberpornography and Law - presentation on current Doctoral Research ', Institute for Cultural Research, Lancaster University

Conference Administration

(2009) Co-organiser, British Association for Canadian Studies Legal Studies Group annual conference, Oxford University (in association with BACS and BACS LSG executive committee).

(2005) Conference Convenor (with Dr. Ann-Maree Farrell) Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Postgraduate Conference, Lancaster University

(2004) Conference Convenor (with BACS/LSG) British Association for Canadian Studies, Legal Studies Group, Annual Conference, Anglo-Canadian perspectives on Gender, Sexuality and Law, Canada House

(2001) Stream Convenor, Cyberlaw Stream, Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, Bristol University

Esteem Indicators//Academic Review//Associations

Esteem Indicators:

• Registered Expert for the European Commission's eContentplus and SaferInternet Plus Programmes (to 2009)
• Former chair and webmistress of the British Association for Canadian Studies, Legal Studies Association (to 2009)
• Former member of the Council of the British Association of Canadian Studies 2003-6.
• Member of the management board of the Centre for Law and Society at Lancaster University

Academic Review and Editorial Service:

Dr Chatterjee is on the editorial board of the Canadian Peer Reviewed Journal Frontiers of Legal Research. She has peer-reviewed articles for the following journals: Journal of Cultural Theory/Discrimination and the Law/Law and Society/Modern Law Review/Information, Communication and Society/Environment and Planning D: Society and Space/European Journal of Information Technology/Web Journal of Current Legal Issues/Feminist Legal Studies

Associations:

Lancaster Lawyer's Aware Project (Advisor)

Lancaster Moot Team Essex Court Competition (Advisor)

Current Teaching

At Undergraduate level, Dr Chatterjee convenes Law of Torts 103r, a first year foundational legal subject. She also contributes to the third year optional courses Gender and the Law 350 and Intellectual Property 313. 

Current Supervision: 

LLM - Cyberterrorism and hacking//electronic evidence

LLB: Privacy and Tort; Civil Partnership & Marriage; Gender and Law; Asbestos litigation; Stalking Law

Former Supervision: 

LLM - Cyberbullying; Harrassment and SNS

LLB: Privacy and Tort; Superinjunctions; Children who kill; Internet law and Piracy

Office Hours

Wednesday 1-2

Thesis Title

Chatterjee, B. (2001) 'Screwing with Technology': A Thesis on Cyberpornography, Cyberidentity and Law. A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis is concerned with legal approaches to cyberspace and questions of identity. Whereas current legal approaches to cyberspace have been those of 'black-letter law', where cyberspace is conceived of as a 'neutral' tool, this thesis turns to the methodologies and approaches of the social sciences, where cyberspace is seen as an arena for social construction, and where questions of identity, particularly gender and sexual identity, are at the fore. Considering the question of how the cyberidentity might differ from the legal subject, this thesis draws on elements of various theories such as post/feminism, cyberfeminism and queer theory in order to expose the nature of the cyberidentity as postmodern, plural and fragmented. Such an approach highlights questions of identity and draws attention to the possible tensions between the potentially destabilising effects of the postmodern cyberidentity, and the legal subject as the modernist, binary subject. 

In order to more cleary illustrate the tension between the cyberidentity and the legal subject, this thesis looks to adult cyberpornography and obscenity law as an example of this tension. The area of obscenity and pornography lends istelf as an ideal example not only of an area of discrete legal practice/regulation, but also as an area where cyberspace, identity politics and critical theories can be seen to intersect and coalesce. Having arranged the various theoretical perspectives and turned them to the study of cyberspace and cyberidentity in the context of obscenity law, this thesis moves to conclude that there may be major tensions between identities in cyberspace and identities under the law, potentially resulting in violence to cyberidentities in their encounters with the law. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to the development of socio-legal studies on identity, and alternative legal approaches to cyberspace that are critical and theoretically informed - approaches that do not exist in the current legal discourse on cyberspace. 

• New technology and tort

  05/12/2012 →
  Dr Chatterjee is currently working on a project exploring the impacts of new technology on tort. She presented a paper on this at the 2013 Law and the Senses Conference at Westminster, London. The con ... Read more»

• Cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare and international law

  05/07/2012 →
  Dr Chatterjee is currently exploring the contours of international law as they relate to cyberterrorism and cyberwarfare. A paper on the topic has been presented to the International Law Group, Lancas ... Read more»

• Dr Bela Chatterjee, Finalist, OUP Law Teacher of the Year Awards 2013

  30/11/2012
  http://www.lancs.ac.uk/sci-tech/business/latest_news/?article_id=1583 ... Read more»

• Dr Bela Bonita Chatterjee - Finalist - OUP Law Teacher of the Year Award 2013

  01/11/2012
  Shortlisted Candidates Now Revealed   Meet the Candidates   After much discussion, our judging panel has arrived at the final six candidates that make up the shortlist for Law Teacher of the Year 20 ... Read more»

• I want to work as...A Lawyer

  11/02/2010
  Interview with Dr Bela Chatterjee on legal careers in Lancashire Evening Post Thursday February 11 2010 p 59 ... Read more»

• International Law Group

  (Speaker) 8/2/2012
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• FASS Teaching Network, Lancaster University

  (Invited speaker) 20/2/2013
  Activity: Participation in workshop, seminar, course
  Read more»

• Higher Education Academy Inclusive Curriculum Design Project - interviewee

  (Interviewee)
  Activity: Work on advisory panels for social community and cultural engagement
  Read more»