Dr Robert Herian
Associate Professor
Amory B2423
Overview
I am an Associate Professor of Law. My current research focuses on interdisciplinary and theoretical analyses of law, technologies, systems, and data. My teaching focuses on equity and trusts, and law and technology.
Research
- Law, technology, and data
- Law and psychoanalysis
- History and development of the law of equity
- Law and literature
- Critical legal theory, philosophy, and jurisprudence
Supervision
I'm interested in supervising PhD projects that explore one or more of my research topics, including intersections of technology, data, property, equity, contract, critical theory, and political economy.
Research students
- Bratu, I. Lex Technica as a New Legal Order (with The Open University, in progress)
- Lewis, M. Consent as a legitimising factor for the processing of personal data and ‘big data’ for the purposes of profiling and risk analytics within the General Insurance industry (with The Open University, in progress)
Publications
Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.
| 2024 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |
2024
- Herian R. (2024) Your data is s**t, Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, volume 23, pages 239-249.
2022
- Herian R. (2022) APPG Blockchain Evidence Report - Government, Democracy & Voting, APPG Blockchain Secretariat, Big Innovation Centre.
- Herian R. (2022) Techno-Legal Supertoys: Smart Contracts and the Fetishization of Legal Certainty, Smart Legal Contracts Computable Law in Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, 246-268. [PDF]
2021
- Herian R. (2021) Law and the Reality It Masks, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 191-200, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_10. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Stakeholders of Capitalism, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 73-107, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_5. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) The Road to Complete Justice, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 47-71, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_4. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Somewhere between privacy and protection, Data, Routledge, 42-66, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001-3. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Data with subject, Data, Routledge, 89-110, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001-5. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Reform Economics and the ‘Plucked Rib’ of Equity, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 27-46, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_3. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) A Different Theory of Civil Justice, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 109-122, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_6. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Fetishism in Action, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 123-139, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_7. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Equity Fetishism, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 141-163, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_8. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Data, Routledge, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Beautiful machines and bureaucratic dreams, Data, Routledge, 15-41, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001-2. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Setting the Scene, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 13-25, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_2. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Introduction, Data, Routledge, 1-14, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001-1. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Neoliberalism and Equity Fetishism, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 165-189, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_9. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Being in data, Data, Routledge, 67-88, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001-4. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Introduction, Capitalism and the Equity Fetish, Springer International Publishing, 1-11, DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-66523-4_1. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) Proximate data – a conclusion, Data, Routledge, 111-125, DOI:10.4324/9781003162001-6. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2021) NFT – Legal Token Classification.
- Herian R. (2021) Technology with legal education, The Critical Legal Pocketbook, Counter Press, 267-272.
- Herian R. (2021) Capitalism and the Equity Fetish Desire, Property, Justice, Palgrave Macmillan.
- Herian R. (2021) Data New Trajectories in Law, Routledge.
2020
- Herian R. (2020) Desire Lines, Law in Motion: 50 years of Legal Change, Open University Law School, 90-104.
- Herian R. (2020) Smart contracts: a remedial analysis, Information & Communications Technology Law, volume 30, no. 1, pages 17-34, DOI:10.1080/13600834.2020.1807134. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2020) Blockchain, GDPR, and fantasies of data sovereignty, Law, Innovation and Technology, volume 12, no. 1, pages 156-174, DOI:10.1080/17579961.2020.1727094. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2020) The Conscience of Thomas More: An Introduction to Equity in Modernity, The Heythrop Journal, volume 63, no. 1, pages 64-75, DOI:10.1111/heyj.13507. [PDF]
2018
- Herian R. (2018) Blockchain the regulator, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 76-96, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-6. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Interlude II: Regulatory technology, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 97-100, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-7. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Interlude IV: A dangerous lack of law, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 157-158, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-12. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) The psycho-politics of blockchain, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 139-156, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-11. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Blockchain, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 13-30, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-2. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Critical regulation, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 159-170, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-13. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Blockchain as an ethics of neoliberal political economy, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 124-138, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-10. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Interlude III: Anarchic technologies for anarchic economies, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 119-123, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-9. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) A regulatory conundrum, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 34-51, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-4. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Setting the scene, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 103-118, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-8. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Interlude I: Supplementing the memory economic, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 31-33, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-3. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Regulatory tradition, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 52-75, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-5. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Introduction, Regulating Blockchain, Routledge, 1-10, DOI:10.4324/9780429489815-1. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Legal Recognition of Blockchain Registries and Smart Contracts.
- Herian R. (2018) Blockchain and the Distributed Reproduction of Capitalist Class Power, Moneylab Reader Overcoming the hype / edited by Inte Gloerich, Geert Lovink and Patricia de Vries, 43-51.
- Herian R. (2018) Regulating Blockchain Critical Perspectives in Law and Technology, Routledge.
- Herian R. (2018) The Politics of Blockchain, Law and Critique, volume 29, no. 2, pages 129-131, DOI:10.1007/s10978-018-9223-1. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Taking Blockchain Seriously, Law and Critique, volume 29, no. 2, pages 163-171, DOI:10.1007/s10978-018-9226-y. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2018) Regulating Disruption: Blockchain, Gdpr, and Questions of Data Sovereignty, Journal of Internet Law, volume 22, pages 1-16.
2017
- Herian R. (2017) The Castrated Trustee: Jouissance and Breach of Trust, Pólemos, volume 11, no. 1, DOI:10.1515/pol-2017-0007. [PDF]
- Herian R. (2017) Blockchain and the (re)imagining of trusts jurisprudence, Strategic Change, volume 26, no. 5, pages 453-460, DOI:10.1002/jsc.2145. [PDF]
2016
- Szocik K, Herian R. (2016) Evolutionary Roots of Property Rights; The Natural and Cultural Nature of Human Cooperation, The Heythrop Journal, volume 60, no. 6, pages 821-831, DOI:10.1111/heyj.12338. [PDF]
2015
- Herian R. (2015) Henry Miller: obscene other of the law, Henry Miller New Perspectives, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 95-108.
2014
- Herian R. (2014) ‘How Long Do You Intend to Stay?’: Desire Meets Proscription in the Subject in Henry Miller’s Via Dieppe–Newhaven, Liverpool Law Review, volume 35, no. 1, pages 65-81, DOI:10.1007/s10991-013-9145-9. [PDF]
External impact and engagement
- Member/contributor All Party Parliamentary Group Blockchain (@appg-blockchain) examining policy development and regulation of distributed ledger technologies.
- Expert panel member, author, and contributor to the EU Blockchain Observatory and Forum
- Co-founder of Law, Information, Future, Technology (LIFT) research cluster with The Open University Law School
- Co-founder of the Equity and Trusts Research Network (ETRN) with The University of Kent Law School.
- Member of the AHRC funded Law and the Human Network at University of Kent Law School.
- Member of the Open University research group on blockchain technology: OpenBlockchain
Teaching
Modules taught
Biography
My current research focuses on interdisciplinary and theoretical analyses of law, technologies, systems, and data. I often present research at domestic and international conferences and publish in legal and non-legal peer-reviewed journals, edited collections, and via online portals including The Conversation and Critical Legal Thinking. I also work on developing technology policy with UK and EU governments.
I am author of three books Regulating Blockchain: Critical Perspectives in Law and Technology (Routledge, 2018), Data: New Trajectories in Law (Routledge, 2021), and Capitalism and the Equity Fetish: Desire, Property, Justice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
My further research interests include the law of equity, legal histories, civil justice, psychoanalysis, literature, and language drawing upon critical theories, philosophy, and traditional jurisprudence. I'm co-founder of the Law, Information, Future, Technology (LIFT) research group with The Open University Law School, and the Equity and Trusts Research Network (ETRN) with the University of Kent Law School.
For a full list of conference papers, working papers, and publications, please follow my ORCID link.