LMH is delighted to welcome new Africa Oxford Initiative Law Fellow, Dr Joel Modiri.
Dr Joel Malesela Modiri is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria. He holds the degrees LLB cum laude (Pret) and PhD (Pret). His PhD thesis was entitled “The Jurisprudence of Steve Biko: A Study in Race, Law and Power in the ‘Afterlife’ of Colonial-apartheid”.
Prior to his appointment as Lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria, Dr Modiri worked as a lecturer in the School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand in 2015 and before that as an assistant lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria in 2014. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer at the end of 2018.
Dr Modiri mainly teaches in the field of Jurisprudence and Legal Philosophy. He has convened and taught a number of law subjects such as Social Justice and Human Rights, African Human Rights, Research Methodology, Legal Problems of HIV & AIDS, and Law and Transformation. He has also taught portions of courses in Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology and Public Policy presented by the Faculty of Humanities. He currently convenes the LLM/MPhil in Law and Political Justice.
Dr Modiri’s main research focus areas are Critical Race Theory, African Jurisprudence, Law and Identity, Feminist Political Philosophy, Black Political Thought, Legal Education and Critical Pedagogy as well as Critical Theories of Human Rights and Constitutionalism. The central concern of his teaching and research relates to the development of a critical anti-racist post-conquest jurisprudence through which to contemplate possibilities for liberation, decolonisation and historical justice in South Africa and beyond. This entails drawing on a number of intellectual traditions and opening space for new knowledges that could disclose alternative conceptions of law, constitutionalism, history, justice, subjectivity, power, memory and politics. In addition to deepening his post-doctoral research on the theory and politics of Steve Biko, Modiri’s current research projects include “Azanian jurisprudence”, “Decolonisation and Critical Legal Futures” and “Thinking Race Historically”.
The Africa Oxford Initiative (AfOx) is a cross-university platform for academic and research collaborations between the University of Oxford and African researchers and institutions. The Initiative supports the work of universities and research institutions across Africa and facilitates the development of equitable and extensive collaborations between Oxford and African institutions.