2017-01-31

Tony K Stewart (Vanderbilt) give the 2017 Majewski Lecture. In 1287 b.s. (=1879/80 c.e.) a short Bangla work was published in Calcutta under the title of Iblichnamar punthi by the highly productive scholar Garibulla, who had composed the text about a century earlier. This somewhat unusual text is a colloquy between the Prophet Muhammad and the fallen Iblich (Ar. Iblis), also called Saytan. The reader is offered humorous, often naughty descriptions of the depraved and licentious acts of Saytan's lackeys, parodies of the standard 'aḥadith literatures regarding proper conduct-everything a good practicing Muslim is not! This fictional inversion of all that is good and proper titillates the reader in its mad escape from the Bakhtinian monologic of theology, history, and law that governs the discourse of the conservative Sunni mainstream. It is the exaggerated negative image of the law as seen from the imagined squalid underbelly of Bengali society.

Coinciding the parliamentary vote in the House of Commons, this ‘Lincoln Leads’ discussion considers the future of Britain post-Brexit. Our panel include Lord Lisvane, the leading expert on parliamentary democracy and former Clerk of the House of Commons (2011-2014). He currently sits in the House of Lords as a crossbench parliamentarian. Lord Lisvane was one of the first to call for parliamentary approval for Brexit and suggested a second referendum was needed in July. Joining him is Graham Child (Visiting Fellow in Law), who served as a practicing solicitor and partner at Slaughter & May, where he negotiated and advised on contracts from an EU law point of view and was involved with litigation before the EU Court and Commission. Finally we welcome current student Daniel Kozelko (Bachelor of Civil Law) who discusses the implication of Brexit for the doctrine of subsidiarity, and the prospective response of other supra-national legal bodies to the UK including the European Court of Human Rights and the Council of Europe. 'Lincoln Leads' is a seminar series designed to foster conversation between Lincoln's common rooms and alumni, as well as to showcase the exceptional research taking place in the College.