David Gurnham

Professor David Gurnham is a Professor of Criminal Law and Interdisciplinary Legal Studies at the Southampton Law School, University of Southampton, where he has served since 2012 and previously held the position of Deputy Head of School (Research) from 2016 to 2019. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Law and Humanities (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) since 2017 and co-hosts the annual Law and Humanities summer Roundtable, establishing himself as a leading scholar in interdisciplinary legal studies.

His research centers on interdisciplinary approaches to law through humanities and the arts, with core expertise in Criminal Law, Law and Literature, Cultural Legal Studies, and Psychoanalysis. Gurnham's work explores how literary forms, narrative structures, and cultural artifacts shape legal understanding, particularly regarding marginalization, migration, and criminal justice. His two monographs—Memory, Imagination, Justice: Intersections of law and literature (2009) and Crime, Desire and Law’s Unconscious: Law, Literature, Culture (2014)—form the foundation of his influential scholarship in law and humanities.

Analysis of Gurnham's recent publications (2020-2025) reveals consistent thematic focus on narrative jurisprudence, with emerging emphasis on migration discourse, prison literature, and the metaphorical language of law. His work demonstrates increasing engagement with public scholarship, including prominent contributions to The Conversation analyzing Kafkaesque elements in contemporary legal scandals. The interdisciplinary nature of his research bridges legal theory, literary criticism, and socio-legal studies.

Gurnham teaches Criminal Law (LLB1) and Crime in Law, Literature and Culture (LLB3), and actively supervises PhD students in interdisciplinary legal research. His externally funded projects include ESRC-supported work on criminalizing contagion, studies on young people's perceptions of sexual consent, and knowledge exchange initiatives exploring marginalized communities' creative responses to justice problems, funded by Taylor & Francis and the Southampton Institute of Arts and Humanities.

He is an active member of the Centre for Justice Studies and has convened major international events including the 2024 Law and Humanities Roundtable commemorating Kafka's legacy and collaborative workshops with Winchester School of Art and the John Hansard Gallery examining creative justice interventions through lived experience and performance.