Dr Scott Beattie
Victoria Law School
I am a senior lecturer and Director of Teaching & Learning at Victoria Law School, located in the middle of the legal precinct in Melbourne, Australia. My research fields are media law and legal geography. My phd concerned internet censorship and theories of space and has been published as Community, Space and Online Censorship: Regulating Pornotopia. I am working on the idea of Jurispace – legal conceptual space – which comes out of this research. My next project – the regulation of swearing.
Nevertheless I spend most of my teaching time occupied with first year foundation students, teaching legal research which includes ethics, professionalism and information literacy. Wouldn't you know it, I also have a textbook in this area – The Law Handbook (3rd ed).
I developed the concept of legal literacies while teaching this unit to economically disadvantaged students from Melbourne's Western suburbs, wondering what do students from non-elite backgrounds need to help them get started as legal professionals.
Outside of academia I've also worked in policy research (in human rights) and volunteer in community legal centres.
Of course legal education is just one part of my life. I'm a visual artist, I have an art blog at www.sotadic.blogspot.com and publish online comics at Astrolabus Comics. I have always been a big fan of comics since discovering Tintin at an early age, but these days manga are keeping me interested, particularly alternative artists like Matsumoto Taiyo, but I'm not a snob and read One Piece as well. I also enjoy gaming, wing chun and hanging out with my dogs.
