About

In this episode of Thinking Justice, Dr Sen Raj talks to us about how love, hate, rage, fear and disgust shape both the law and our political claims. Refuting the idea that law is solely comprised of logic, reason, precedent and norms, Sen explains how the law is already replete with emotion. Based on his doctrinal analysis, Sen discusses how disgust is mobilised in cases about queer sex in a way that sentimentalises certain zones of privacy where queer sex is acceptable; in hate crime legislation that assumes homophobia, transphobia and racism are individual aberrations rather than institutional problems; in anti-discrimination laws that only protect certain intimacies and identities that do not trouble existing arrangements of gender and sexuality; and in refugee laws that seek performances of authentic queerness that are intelligible to white decision-makers. Inspired by a long tradition of Black feminist and queer scholarship that takes emotion, the personal, and the affective seriously, Sen argues that logic and feeling are not separate things, and that emotion functions as a productive and central organising factor in our political and legal claims.