Call for Papers: The Art of Law Symposium on Creative Pedagogy, Decolonisation and Reclaiming the Legal Imagination in the Age of AI [Hybrid, Bath, UK; 20 November 2026]

Bath Spa University, with funding support from the Association of Law Teachers, is hosting The Art of Law, a creative legal pedagogy symposium, on Friday 20 November 2026 at its Newton Park campus in Bath. The symposium focuses on fostering a culture of creative pedagogy, inclusivity and decolonisation in legal education, and asks how legal teaching can move towards a vibrant, participatory and engaging classroom experience.

The day is built around co-creation workshops, lightning talks and train-the-trainer sessions rather than a conventional panel format. Both in-person and remote participation are welcomed, and applicants are asked to indicate their preference in the proposal itself.

The Art of Law is a funded research project inspired by James Boyd White's foundational concept of the Legal Imagination, which treats law as a critical, ethical and humanistic artform. By integrating creative practices into legal education, the organisers aim to design an inclusive learning environment that engages diverse student cohorts and stays rooted in authentic human judgment and creativity.

The call notes that traditional models of legal education can rely on rigid frameworks that struggle to hold the attention of modern law students. With legal education facing a dual imperative, the urgent need to decolonise the curriculum alongside the rise of generative AI, the organisers see a growing disconnect between conventional legal instruction and the contemporary student experience, and the symposium is framed as an attempt to bridge it.

The organisers invite legal educators and academics, broadly defined, to submit papers, workshop proposals and creative perspectives on modern legal education. Joint submissions from academic staff and undergraduate or postgraduate student co-creators are very welcome.

The call places no restriction on nationality or on the applicant's home institution, and remote presentation is offered as an option, so scholars based outside the United Kingdom may apply.

• Standard presentation: 15 minutes.
• Creative lightning talk: 5 to 10 minutes.
• Train-the-trainer or interactive workshop: maximum 45 minutes, inclusive of question time.

Proposals should ideally address one of the three core thematic tracks.

Track 1: Reclaiming the Legal Imagination through the Arts

• Integrating law and literature, poetry, narrative and storytelling into core legal curricula.
• Using tactile and visual methods such as zine-making, creative collage, book art and junk journalling to deconstruct legal texts or as pedagogical tools.
• Performance, improvisation and bodily presence techniques in the law classroom or clinic.
• Gamification, serious play and interactive simulation design in legal education.

Track 2: Creative Methods as Decolonial Pedagogy

• Moving beyond superficial diversity to radical, arts-based curricular restructuring.
• Engaging student communities overwhelmed by or excluded from traditional doctrinal legal designs.
• Empirical or theoretical reflections on how creative expression fosters inclusivity.
• Intersections between decolonial, feminist and queer pedagogies in the law classroom.

Track 3: Creative Pedagogy in the Shadow of Generative AI

• Designing assessment strategies that are fundamentally resilient to generative AI tools.
• Elevating original voice, critical consciousness and human ethical judgment as the indispensable assets of future legal professionals.
• Fostering academic integrity through formative, process-oriented or reflective creative portfolios.

Proposals must be emailed to artoflaw@bathspa.ac.uk by 12 October 2026 and must contain the following.

• Author name or names, affiliation or affiliations, and email address.
• Title of the presentation or contribution.
• An abstract of up to 250 words outlining the focus of the presentation, the pedagogical practice or the empirical case study.
• Format preference: standard presentation, lightning talk, or train-the-trainer pedagogical workshop.

Applicants should also indicate whether they wish to present in person at Newton Park or virtually.

A limited number of small travel bursaries is available to widen access and secure broad institutional representation. Applicants who wish to be considered should attach a bursary justification statement of no more than 250 words as an appendix to the abstract submission.

Priority for these small grants goes to early career researchers and PhD students, to precarious staff on casual, fractional or fixed-term contracts, and to underfunded scholars or those who can demonstrate a lack of institutional funding from their home university. All abstracts and travel bursary applications undergo anonymous peer review by a panel of reviewers.

Accepted participants will not only present their work but will also collaborate on refining a scalable Transferable Pedagogical Toolkit, which the Association of Law Teachers will host on its website after the event. The call does not offer journal publication of the papers presented.