iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Heading home after a fab 2 days in Cambridge: incredible trade mark conference organised by Lionel Bently & Robert Burrell; an all-star line up with the weight of Cambridge & Oxford IP centres behind it! 👏 Delighted to have presented with economic historian David Higgins on our 3rd research paper.

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

In fact, the pic in my previous post was stained glass by the artist Jacques Villon, older brother of Marcel Duchamp, but the stained glass here👇 also in Metz Cathedral 🇫🇷 IS by Marc Chagall, with his ‘trade mark’ striking use of blue & flowing lines; each pane a combo of 3 glass colours.

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

What does it mean to encounter a work of art in the time, place and manner intended by the artist? I contemplated that this morning as the sunshine poured through the incredible colours of these stain glass windows by Chagall in Metz Cathedral, France 🇫🇷 as the town bells rang across the town 🔔

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

Delighted to see this play yesterday at Royal Haymarket starring the great Ralph Fiennes; David Hare’s story of theatre in transition - the late 19th century world of Henry Irving & Ellen Terry, where theatre disconnected from modern world, is challenged by Gordon Craig, Stanislavsky & others. 🌟

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

BOOK LAUNCH: Copyright, Contract & Video Games by Dr Amy Thomas of @create-glasgow.bsky.social: “how video game contracts act as monologues of power, moulding players to align with proprietary ideologies.” Hybrid, 14 July at 11am UK time. Looking forward to it! Email Amy to join.

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Back at Goldsmiths’ Hall, one of oldest guilds in City, to research my 3rd collaborative paper with the business/economic historian David Higgins: this time it’s crime, trade descriptions & the Birmingham jewellery trade in interwar years; & we will be presenting this together in Cambridge in Sept!

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Right now at the conference ‘Whistler in Action’ Tate Britain, Dr Grischka Petri presents on the 19th century artist’s cosmopolitan identity & it’s influence on his art; & earlier fab keynote by Prof Carol Jacobi, & my fellow panellists Dr Lam & Dr Belyaeva. Programme here: tinyurl.com/2rap5sax

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Just spotted this incredible portrait 👇in a far corner of the house at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire: the 19th century novelist Caroline Norton by George Hayter, 1835; learned, distinguished & dignified. A woman who campaigned for legal change & became the sitter for justice murals in Westminster. 🌟

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

‘What is art but the capacity to join words together to create character, or conjure sounds from solid objects to make music, or smear paint on a canvas to make images?’ director Richard Eyre discussing The Tempest, now on at the RSC, Stratford Upon Avon, starring Kenneth Branagh 🌟 simply brilliant!

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Continuing my dive into @law-and-humanities.bsky.social arts articles. I loved Rex Ferguson’s 2010 piece on Ford Madox Ford’s 1915 novel The Good Soldier: charting shifts in narrative voice & relating to the criminal trial, Ford’s narrator is more like an accused, & his reader like expert witness…

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Continuing my dive into past arts pieces in @law-and-humanities.bsky.social: in 2010(2) Patrick Hanafin unravels the Italian novel Isolina by Dacia Maraini; adapting narrative genre of ‘inchiesta’, Maraini gives voice to Isolina, victim of fatal/violent backstreet abortion forced by military lover…

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Mayerling by Kenneth Macmillan now at Royal Opera House; a ballet that revolutionised dance language, reinventing pas de deux as site for dark yet intense emotion & playing out complex psychological sexual attraction, repulsion & destruction. Much for @law-and-humanities.bsky.social to contemplate 🤔

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Another dive into past arts scholarship in @law-and-humanities.bsky.social: I loved Stella Bruzzi’s ‘Imperfect Justice’ in 2010, 4(1) re the film ‘Fury’ by Fritz Lang (1936), long neglected by scholars, reverses usual Hollywood trial: the individual, not the system, has the power to deliver justice…

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Continuing my dive into @law-and-humanities.bsky.social back issues: last wk, I noted Watt/Raffield identified 'performance art' as the paradigmatic art-form for L&H arts reviews in editorial 2007 1:1; this wk I stay with theatre: Derbyshire & @lovedayh.bsky.social 'Performing Injustice' 2008 2:2...

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

“right here, where we live… it’s a really intense time, but that’s what literature is for, that’s what art is for, to make sense of moments in time like this one”, from the play ‘John Proctor is the Villain’, now on at the brilliant @royalcourt.bsky.social ⭐️

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

As L&H approaches 20yrs next yr, I have been tracing its arts scholarship 🎭💃🎨⚖️ & there is no other place to start than the 1st editorial, 1(1), 2007 by Watt & Raffield: D Hare’s @nationaltheatre.org.uk play Stuff Happens, on Iraq War, as part of long tradition of theatrical debate of juristic ideas…

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

From today’s Observer Magazine 👇& Macgregor continues “the responsibility of art” is “to push people out of their comfort zones - not just to entertain, but to provoke thought and questioning”; 1st performance of Mayerling as presenting “a language that was unfamiliar & challenged an audience”

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Well done to Imperial War Museum on their current exhibition ‘Emergency Exits’ re power and British colonial rule in 1950s; open until end of the month 👇

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

‘Think of your least interesting day, & that is interesting enough’ @welshnattheatre.bsky.social ‘s debut drama immerses us in ordinary life of communities whose voices have been long forgotten. Ensemble drama at its best, indicative of deep community values of this theatre co 👏 @mchshe.bsky.social

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Lucky me to be in Southampton yesterday for the reopening of its Gallery! Fab show by Southampton’s own Emma Richardson juxtaposed with city’s own historic collection; I will be speaking in Sept about two 19th cent paintings not on display, which, in my view, speak to themes explored by Richardson

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Optical research 🧐 really looking forward to presenting before this painting - Salvador Dali’s Christ of St John on the Cross, in Kelvingrove - this November, as part of Encounters with Art, Glasgow.

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

On my way to RSA - home of 19th cent copyright reform - re @create-glasgow.bsky.social funded digital legal history resource: Stationers’ Register Online 1557-1640 led by English scholars Ian Gadd & Giles Bergel, which has changed book historians’ understandings of Shakespeare 👉 tinyurl.com/2y6m8y58

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 03/12/2025

Found them!!👇Unused for 30 yrs, after I failed my Royal Academy of Dance entry exam aged 17, but now I’m ready for Dance & Legal Materialities workshop at @ials.bsky.social on Monday 💃 🤔 hoping to connect further with @law-and-humanities.bsky.social community! 🕺🪩 💡Event details: tinyurl.com/nkpwtjnp

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Just arrived at @tate.bsky.social to see the Lee Miller exhibition as Arts Editor of @law-and-humanities.bsky.social with a rockstar from art history academia 🎸🌟

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Thank you @rhul-cvs.bsky.social for a warm welcome this evening; loved every minute of presenting to you & unraveling interdisciplinary perspectives on your stunning art collection 🌟 my third talk in the gallery and I sense not my last! And I got lost in all architectural details on my way in 👇

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Thinking about my talk ( tinyurl.com/4rekdmnc) this wk, while on Richmond Hill (known as Turner’s view & short walk from👇) My talk reflects on being present with art in the Gallery, but I will start with what is absent (Turner’s painting sold in 1993) which takes us to a different intellectual place

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

Out now in The Burlington: my review of Martinez & Roman Female Printmakers, Printsellers & Print Publishers: The Imprint of Women 1700-1830'. "pushes back against the archival gender bias that has informed record creation & preservation"; important focus on prints, understudied cf to painting.

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Exhibition Launch: "Painting and Copyright in the Nineteenth Century" Thurs 20 Nov, 6–8pm Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, Egham. Time travel with me back to the late 19th cent, the time of the emergence of modern copyright, in the presence of one of the best collections of Victorian modern art.

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Have you ever wondered: what’s in the numerous domes of the Royal Pavilion Brighton? One houses the archive & did some digging there today also re 19th century painter Rosa Bonheur, one of the few women to infiltrate a male dominated arts elite, whose work is discussed in Gambart v Ball (1863).

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Just arriving at Royal Pavilion Brighton, which houses part of the Royal Collection, to talk to their Collections team: how can scholars help galleries navigate historic donor restrictions? I’ll be drawing on my research with Steph Scholten @hunterianglasgow.bsky.social & funded by ESRC impact grant

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

Why was bigamy a crime of mobility in 18th cent? How was 19th cent public nuisance impacted by tech change/railways? What can 19th cent depositions tells us re marginalised communities? How did Stoker protect Dracula against ‘dramatic pirates’? All answered @nationalarchives.gov.uk.web.brid.gy today

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

“Deafness passes through us like a police-whistle”.👇In time of tyranny, what if regime is fighting to be heard & people can’t hear them & declare a ‘Deaf Republic’. What depths of human understanding do we discover in a Republic formed by a basic form of human resistance. At @royalcourt.bsky.social

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

A very good reason to do a couple of monograph peer reviews for @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social : you could get a free copy of the Cultural History of Law series (gen ed Gary Watt) which usually costs over £400. Great to have a copy on my bookshelf 🌟

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

Champagne before it was called ‘Champagne’ 👇mid 19th cent bottles of what we today call champagne were marked with name of business/producer (here J Perrier brothers) & the name of the village where produced (here Chalons /Ay). Thanks to all at Joseph Perrier champagne house 🇫🇷 for great tour (& 🥂)

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

I’ve heard that some historians do ‘optical research’ visiting physical sites of key events to reflect on the past. If lawyers were to do that too, this is a beautiful place to start, in contemplating how to keep geographical names free for use: Chiemsee, Bavaria discussed by ECJ: shorturl.at/F0apM

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

Standing at Turner’s view, a painting spot of the great JMW Turner, but what was he thinking when he painted The Slave Ship now in collection of @mfaboston.bsky.social What view of law does this embody? Reflections on this & more coming up in editorial of next @law-and-humanities.bsky.social Issue

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

1 of the wonderful things about working for @create-glasgow.bsky.social is its genuinely collaborative team. I have been so lucky to work closely with Bart Meletti for the last few days, finalising a visual art exhibition for RHUL about copyright history; couldn’t do it without Bart’s creative eye 🌟

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Thanks to all for 🌟 @law-and-humanities.bsky.social event last week: Austen’s Legal World expertly led by @profprobert.bsky.social at @uniexeterlawschool.bsky.social . So many fab papers, but I am still thinking about Dr Nichola McNulty’s thoughts on Austen’s literature as proto-feminist activism… 🤔

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

One of the great perks of being a legal historian: knowing what lies behind these heavy doors - not just the magnificent interior but also the dusty docs in the vaults. This is the Goldsmith Co, City of London, 1st recognised in hallmarking statutes by Edward I, 1300s. Thank you fab archivists 👍

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

'The 4 women stare out at the audience. This becomes an accusing glare. Such horrors occur when society sits in silent toleration of systemic degradation.' Powerful review coming soon for @law-and-humanities.bsky.social by @adiver.bsky.social re play The Marian Hotel on forced infant relinquishments

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

‘They think this is just history, but it isn’t’ Rockets & Blue Lights play by W Pinnock; just read the script👇 Past & present powerfully converge: linchpin is scene depicting slavery’s persistence despite its illegality; for @law-and-humanities.bsky.social shows problem of divorcing law from context

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

Looking forward to being at @lselaw.bsky.social on Fri to comment on some excellent work in progress. I'll be talking about copyright & collaboration in theatre & art in the 19th century, as well as looking at legal debates through lens of 'Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse' by Sir Joshua Reynolds 👇

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

On my desk 👇 My current reading challenge… will I make my way through this for 11 July? ‘Jane Austen’s Legal World’ @law-and-humanities.bsky.social annual event led by @profprobert.bsky.social held at @uniexeterlawschool.bsky.social Full programme & how to attend: tinyurl.com/3fhfb6du

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Looking forward to speaking to UK Registrars on 1 May in Kelvin Hall re power of interdisciplinary scholarship, when tied to close archival work, in art gallery context. Scholars can help galleries like @hunterianglasgow.bsky.social re-think donor restrictions e.g. no-lending of Whistler's work...

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Just leaving Royal Court preview for the brand new play Scenes from a Repatriation by Joel Tan. 👏 and how nice to meet Joel in the audience! Review coming up in @law-and-humanities.bsky.social by repatriation expert Dr Kristin Hausler, BIICL

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

THEATRE NEWS: Olivier Awards 2025: Best Actor nominees inc Adrien Brody, 'Fear of 13', Donmar London: 'how a routine traffic stop turned into a conviction for murder' & '22 yrs on Death Row.' We've got this covered @law-and-humanities.bsky.social: review coming soon by @agatafijalkow.bsky.social

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Just arrived at the Imperial War Museum to talk to the collections team about my ESRC-funded project ‘Rethinking Donor Restrictions’ drawing on my research collaboration with Steph Scholten (The Hunterian) & art historians Alicia Hughes & G Petri, published by Institute of Art & Law

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Dr Elena Cooper @drelenacooper.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

True story: I just got stopped at Glasgow Airport for having this in my hand luggage 👇apologies to fellow passengers for the wait while it was tested; according to security, it’s ‘just too big’! Blaming this on the oversize-brain power of Lionel Bently & co-authors… @oxfordunipress.bsky.social

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