Paolo Vargiu

In a strange sort of accident, this academic year I’ve ended up teaching tort law. I didn’t set out to do it, really, and I certainly did not grow up thinking “yes, negligence and nuisance, that’s where I’ll plant my flag”. I picked it because I had to pick something, or it was going to be picked for me. One of those institutional inevitabilities, like fire doors that must be kept closed or the fact that the printer in the corridor is always out of toner (good thing that I don’t use that one anymore). I chose it because, faced with the list of core modules, it seemed like the one I would dislike the least. There’s a difference between liking and disliking the least; it’s the margin of survival. However, here I am, some weeks in, and I find myself, absurdly, enjoying it. I’m even starting to see the outlines of moral philosophy wearing the wig of practicality. People injure each other in the most inventive ways, and the law tries to make sense of that. Tort law, in its unassuming way, i...

  It has been one of those rare weeks when things actually fall into place, or close enough to fool one into thinking they have. Between half-awake writing sessions at unholy hours and the usual avalanche of emails, I somehow managed to add a few more pages to my next monograph. A small victory, especially considering I sacrificed the mid-week Serie A match for it (Cagliari played atrociously, which in hindsight made my sacrifice feel almost saintly). Still, the real thrill came from taking my ideas out for a walk - almost literally, if could actually pull off a step. I presented Investment Arbitration’s Tightrope at Warwick to an engaged and curious audience, the sort of people who listen, think, and then ask the kind of questions that make one want to rewrite half their argument before dinner. Those encounters are rare these days – at least for an academic in my position (literal and otherwise), and when they happen they remind me why I started doing this whole academic thing in ...