Law, Place, & the Dead

This event was held on Tuesday 6 September 2016

Marc Trabsky presents a spatial history of the office of coroner in nineteenth century colonial society.

This seminar explores the relationship between law, place and the dead by offering a spatial history of the office of coroner in nineteenth century colonial society. It will examine how the movements of early coroners incorporated the dead into the political life of the city. The manner in which coroners collected corpses, hawked them from one public house to another, and conducted inquests in crowded taverns, unravels a story about the cultivation of legal relations between the living and the dead. This seminar will question how techniques of place-making shaped the coronial jurisdiction in the nineteenth century and the effects of such techniques for how coroners assume responsibility for the dead in the twenty-first century.

Marc Trabsky is a Lecturer and the Director of Engagement at La Trobe Law School, La Trobe University. His research examines a history of legal institutions and techniques of jurisdiction in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has published book chapters and journal articles on the relationship between law and the dead, coronial law and forensic medicine, and law and technology. He will be a Visiting Scholar at Kent Law School, the University of Kent in 2016. Marc is also a Managing Editor of the socio-legal studies journal Law in Context.