Renata Salecl (born 1962) is a Slovene philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist. She is a senior researcher at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

, and holds a professorship at Birkbeck College, University of London.Biographical details
School of Law, Birkbeck College, 13 February 2013, Accessed: 2013-05-24. (Archived by the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20130926143218/http://www.bbk.ac.uk/law/our-staff/ft-academic/renata-salecl/biographical-details ) She has been a visiting professor at

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a public university, public research university located in London, England and a constituent college of the federal University of London. Founded in 1895 by Fabian Society members Sidn ...

, lecturing on the topic of emotions and law. Every year she lectures at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law ( New York), on Psychoanalysis and Law,Visiting international faculty
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Accessed: 2013-05-24. (Archived by the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20141129072021/http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/visiting-international-faculty-and-scholars ) and she has also been teaching courses on neuroscience and law.Course Number 7338: ''Neuroscience and law'', 15 January to 20 May 2013
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Accessed: 2013-05-24. (Archived by the Wayback Machine at https://web.archive.org/web/20140820200944/http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/courses/neuroscience-and-law ) Since 2012 she has been visiting professor at the Department of Social Science, Heath and Medicine at King's College London. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages. In 2017, she was elected as a member of the Slovene Academy of Science.

Life and civic activism

In the 1980s Salecl became associated with the intellectual circle known as the Ljubljana school of psychoanalysis, which combined the study of

Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...

ian

psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...

with the philosophic legacy of

German idealism German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary ...

and critical theory. In the late 1980s she became active in the

left liberal Social liberalism (german: Sozialliberalismus, es, socioliberalismo, nl, Sociaalliberalisme), also known as new liberalism in the United Kingdom, modern liberalism, or simply liberalism in the contemporary United States, left-liberalism ...

opposition to the ruling Slovenian

Communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

.About the Debate Club 89 (''Debatni klub 89'')
quoting from Museum of Slovenian History ("Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije"), 2008, Ljubljana. In the first democratic elections in Slovenia in April 1990 she unsuccessfully ran for the Slovenian Parliament on the list of the Alliance of Socialist Youth of Slovenia - Liberal Party. After 1990 she left party politics but remained active in public life, especially as a commentator. She was married to the Slovenian Marxist–

Lacanian Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and pu ...

philosopher Slavoj Žižek. They have one son.

Work

She studied philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, graduating with a thesis on Michel Foucault's theory of power under the supervision of the Marxist philosopher

Božidar Debenjak Božidar Debenjak (born 7 May 1935) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, social theorist and translator. Biography He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, then part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In 1961, he became professor at the University of Ljubl ...

. From 1986, she started working as a researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana, In 1991, she obtained a PhD at the Department of Sociology at the University of Ljubljana under the supervision of Drago Braco Rotar. Her work focuses on bringing together law, criminology and psychoanalysis. She has worked on the theories of punishment, and on the analysis of the relation between late capitalist insistence on choice and the increased feelings of anxiety and guilt in post-modern subjects. The book also analyses how matters of choice apply to law and criminology. Salecl is associated with the

critical legal studies Critical legal studies (CLS) is a school of critical theory that developed in the United States during the 1970s.Alan Hunt, "The Theory of Critical Legal Studies," Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1986): 1-45, esp. 1, 5. Se DOI, 10.1 ...

movement. She was Centennial Professor at the department of law at the

(LSE) and is now visiting professor at the LSE's BIOS Centre for the Study of Bioscience, Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Society, and holds a full professorship at the School of Law at Birkbeck College,

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. She often teaches as Visiting Professor at

Cardozo School of Law The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is the law school of Yeshiva University. Located in New York City and founded in 1976, the school is named for Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. Cardozo graduated its first class in 1979. An LL.M. ...

in New York. She has been fellow at the

Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is model ...

(1997/8), visiting professor at the

Humboldt University Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiati ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

, visiting humanities professor at

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

, and visiting professor at Duke University. She also writes columns in various European newspapers, including ''

Delo ''Delo'' (russian: Дело) is a business oriented online media in Ukraine, belonging to ekonomika+ media holding. ''Delo'' was the first daily in Ukraine, publishing its real print circulation (13.000 - 15.000) and trying to introduce Western e ...

'' (Ljubljana) and ''

La Vanguardia ' (; , Spanish for "The Vanguard") is a Spanish daily newspaper, founded in 1881. It is printed in Spanish and, since 3 May 2011, also in Catalan (Spanish copy is automatically translated into Catalan). It has its headquarters in Barcelona and i ...

'' (

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

Awards

* In 2010, she was awarded the title of "Slovenian woman scientist of the year". In December of the same year, she was a candidate for a "Slovenian person of the year" by the daily newspaper ''

''. * In 2011, she was named the most successful woman in Slovenia and got the title ONA 365 by the women magazine ''Ona'' (English: ''SHE'' magazine).

Selected bibliography

In English

* * * * * *

In Slovene

* *

In Spanish

Chapters in books

* Salecl, Renata (2001), "Cut in the body: from clitoridectomy to body art", in Ahmed, Sara, Stacey, Jackie, ''Thinking Through the Skin'', London: Routledge, pp.21-35, . *

References

External links

Interview with photo (2010)

RSA Animate Video on Choice
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salecl, Renata University of Ljubljana faculty People from Slovenj Gradec Slovenian women philosophers Slovenian sociologists University of Ljubljana alumni 1962 births Living people Academics of the London School of Economics Slavoj Žižek Slovenian women sociologists 20th-century Slovenian philosophers 21st-century Slovenian philosophers