Dr Marie Hadley

Marie joined the Newcastle Law School in January, 2020. She is an interdisciplinary legal scholar whose research explores the creation, consumption, and regulation of culture. Her primary expertise relates to copyright law, cultural appropriation, and the legality that manifests in the everyday life of creators. Marie particularly enjoys using a cultural and/or subcultural lens to investigate arts and entertainment law issues, legal disputes, and the engagement between informal systems of legality and the positive law. Before coming to the Newcastle Law School, Marie taught legal writing and research skills to undergraduate law students at three other Australian universities, and researched for and alongside legal scholars, criminologists, a coroner and an anthropologist.

Marie has published her research in both Australia and overseas. She is the author of publications on copyright, the cultural appropriation of Indigenous cultural imagery and arts styles, and inquest law. Her PhD thesis, 'The Politics of Cultural Appropriation Claims and Law Reform', was awarded a PhD Excellence Award. The thesis explores in depth the argument for law reform to prevent the cultural appropriation of Māori and Torres Strait Islander culture, with a particular focus on the protection of cultural imagery and arts styles. Marie was awarded a Kercher Scholarship from the Australian and New Zealand Law and History Society in 2019 to present her doctoral research on the colonial cultural trade in human remains between Australia and New Zealand at their annual conference. 

Marie is currently engaged as a Research Associate on the ARC Discovery Project, 'Producing, Managing and Owning Knowledge in the 21st Century University) (DP200110578).

Marie welcomes applications from prospective research students interested in matters that sit at the nexus of law and the social sciences, and particularly in the fields of intellectual property, cultural rights, entertainment law, and legal history.