Emily E. Roach, PhD

Dr Emily Roach is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Law.

Emily studied Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford (BA (Hons); MA (Oxon)) and the postgraduate Legal Practice Course at the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice, before training and qualifying with a large City firm. Specialising in corporate insolvency and business restructuring, Emily later moved to an American firm where much of her practice was shaped by the 2008 Financial Crisis. Emily has acted for stakeholders across all levels of the capital structure on distressed acquisitions, substantial corporate insolvencies and high-profile business restructurings. During this time, Emily began to pursue an academic interest in literature and successfully completed a Masters in Children's Literature with the University of Roehampton on a Distance Learning basis.

Emily left private practice after twelve years in the City, to pursue a career in Higher Education. Emily completed a Masters in Contemporary Literature and Culture with Distinction and a PhD in English at the University of York. During this time Emily taught Literature and Film on several undergraduate courses, including Critical Practice and Reading Modernity. Emily remains on the roll as a non-practising solicitor.

Emily now teaches Law at undergraduate and postgraduate level including Contract Law, Equity and Trusts, Business Law, Critical Approaches to Current Legal Issues and Banking and Debt Finance. Emily designed and leads an LLM module in Insolvency Law and leads an LLM module in International Finance. Emily is a member of the American Studies Association, the Society of Legal Scholars and the Socio-Legal Studies Association and is a Fellow of the HEA.

Emily is a Trustee of an LGBT charity based in York and a Director of a Community Interest Company which seeks to champion LGBT arts and culture. 

Research
Emily's interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research focuses on law, twentieth and twenty-first century LGBT literature, slam and spoken word poetry, LGBT media and queer theoretical approaches to popular culture. Most recently, Emily has focused on research projects that enable her to utilise her legal background whilst exploring literature, media and culture, with a particular emphasis on LGBT life in Britain and America.

Emily's current research includes a collaborative project on the policing of British music subcultures and interdisciplinary research in its early stages that explores the intersections between American and British LGBT literature and laws impacting LGBT individuals in the period following World War II to the early decades of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Emily has delivered papers on conversion therapy and young adult fiction, performance poetry and judicial control over queer bodies in the United States, the legislative path to gay liberation in Britain contextualised with reference the Lavender Scare and poetry from the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis. Emily has also given various talks on LGBT activist groups lobbying for legislative change. 

Emily recently completed the Post-Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (Distinction) with a research paper on decolonising the core legal curriculum, focusing on Contract Law and the myth of 'freedom of contract'. 
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Publications / Media
Emily has published a variety of book chapters and peer reviewed articles and has undertaken peer review work for several journals. 

Emily has also published non-academic writing inspired by her academic research in Bustle, The Mary Sue and elsewhere. Together with non-fiction, Emily has published flash fiction, short stories and creative non-fiction in literary journals under a pseud and has worked voluntarily as an Associate Prose Editor at a literary journal.

Due to her academic interest in popular culture, Emily has been invited to contribute to various media discussions on BBC Radio York, Radio Five Live and multiple podcasts and has been quoted in articles by The Guardian.