Paolo Vargiu

 Suffering is a deeply subjective issue that questions the structure and theoretical objectivity of the legal system. The law seeks to classify and to draw defined boundaries around concepts as intangible as suffering, and it inevitably falters. It is here that literature can enter the stage, not as an antagonist to the law but as a companion, fluent in ambiguity where law demands clarity. If one considers how the law approaches the problem of suffering in the context of assisted dying, it appears that the courts mainly question how much suffering is too much, or what threshold must be crossed before the law permits a person to seek release. Judges are obviously constrained by precedent, language, and the fear of misstep, and the tools at their disposal, such as medical reports, philosophical arguments, and the cautious wisdom of case law, are far from straightforward. Courts must seek evidence, rationality, proof, but suffering is none of these things. I...

As an academic lawyer, keeping up can sometimes feel impossible. Legal developments churn out at a pace that rivals London’s rush hour, and alongside them is the relentless stream of academic discourse online and in person. Papers, panels, journal articles, social media posts, webinars - every bit of it carrying an air of urgency, as if missing out might spell professional doom. At some point this past term I’ve started to wonder how much of it really matters. It’s not that I don’t care about the law or my work - quite the opposite: I define myself as an academic, to the point that losing use of 75% of my body wasn’t as much a trauma as it usually is for other winners of the spinal cord injury lottery, because I could keep doing what I love without too many adjustments. 1 But trying to stay ahead of every new decision, every article that might be tangentially related to my niche, and every panel discussion hosted in some far-flung time zone often feels less like intellectual enrichmen...

 It's Christmas, I have ten spare minutes per day, and I'm re-reading a few classics. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is the one I've just finished, roughly 20 years after my first rodeo, and it has sparked some reflections on disability discrimination (I was a fully abled biped the first time I read it, and my perspective was understandably different). It's a classic, so the following synopsis is more for my own benefit should I ever actually get to write this paper than for anyone else's. The book revolves around the story of two itinerant labourers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who harbour a shared dream of attaining independence through land ownership. Lennie is a man with a cognitive disability, and he depends on George for guidance and protection. However, this relationship is rendered tragic by society's lack of understanding and accommodation for Lennie’s condition. While much has been written about Steinbeck’s commentary on marginalisation, friends...

 For fifteen years, I have resisted the siren call of the written lecture. Not out of laziness or disdain for preparation, but out of principle: from the moment I first stood in front of a classroom clutching a remote for a PowerPoint presentation, I always believed that the alchemy of a good lecture was not in the script, but in the delivery. I honed my craft during my PhD years, taking perhaps one too many public speaking workshop and eventually teaching some myself. It became clear to me that the essence of teaching was not in reading from a page, but in the living act of storytelling. Slides became my scaffolding, more detailed when the subject matter was unfamiliar, sparser and more evocative when it was well within my wheelhouse. The classroom became a sort of a stage, and at times I acted as equal parts scholar and raconteur (whether I was any good at the latter should be a question for my former students). This approach has served me well: over the years, I have relished th...