This term we have the pleasure of welcoming to the Department Dr Luke McDonagh (@DrLukeMcDonagh), Assistant Professor of Law. In this Q&A interview, Luke talks to us about his research, his teaching, and his ideas for the year ahead.
Could you tell us about your education and career before joining the Department?
I studied for my undergraduate law degree at the National University of Ireland in Galway, and in 2006 I came to LSE for the first time as an LLM student. I carried out my PhD in copyright law at Queen Mary, University of London, and was very lucky to be accepted for a post-doctoral fellowship at LSE shortly afterwards. My first lectureship was then at Cardiff University and from there I moved to City University and became a Senior Lecturer, working on some amazing projects that took me as far as Japan and Latin America.
What is your key area of research expertise and what drew you to the field?
While I was doing my LLM I attended a range of different courses, but I gravitated towards intellectual property law. I found something particularly fascinating about the idea of owning property in intangible culture. I had started playing Irish traditional music a couple of years before, and it was interesting for me to think about the question of ownership in a collaborative medium, which I examined in my LLM dissertation. From my LLM dissertation I then developed my PhD proposal, looking at the role of copyright law in Irish traditional music, and how musicians protect their music and carry ownership whilst maintaining the strong cultural share ethic.
I am currently working on a book called Performing Copyright: law, theatre and authorship, which should be coming out next year with Hart Publishing. It looks at copyright in theatre from the time of Shakespeare up to the present day. When the law first protected a play under statutory copyright in the early eighteenth century, we only protected it as a printed book, and it took more than a century before you could actually assert rights to stop someone else performing it without your permission. In this book I am defining what a dramatic work is under copyright, and asking some key questions: what does it mean to be an author in this collaborative medium? And who gets to control the rights?
The other piece of research I am looking into at the moment relates to patents and medicines. I recently wrote a piece for the LSE COVID-19 blog about vaccines and access to medicines, particularly in light of the Oxford University and AstraZeneca partnership. That will be a patented medicine and the university has made a licensing deal with a huge pharmaceutical company. Some of the people that need a vaccine the most are in countries that can least afford it, and the Oxford/AstraZeneca partnership have stated that there will be global access, but it will be important to see how that plays out in reality.
Which piece of work that you are most proud of so far?
I don’t want to jinx it but I’m really hopeful that my upcoming book it will be something that I am very proud of! It’s been a lot of fun and it will be the deepest research that I’ve completed. I did empirical interviews with playwrights, directors and actors about their work and their approaches to ownership, and the book involves some complex thinking because I am bringing together the history of drama, literary theory, copyright law and socio-legal research.
When you’re not working, what do you like to do in your free time?
I love to play traditional Irish reels and jigs on my mandolin, and I also love taking walks in the local park, and the countryside. I like being in the big city for my day-to-day life but whenever I go back home to Ireland it is always wonderful to visit the really beautiful places close to where my family live in Galway, and breath the bracing sea air on coastal walks.
How have you experienced online teaching and learning in the new educational environment? What lessons should universities take forward from this experience?
I was a little ahead of the curve on this - when I was at City, University of London, I taught on the distance learning LLM programme, which involved uploading a lecture to Moodle every week and setting other materials, so when in March everything shifted online, luckily I had a bit of experience. Also, thankfully we’d done most of the academic year by that point, so we knew our students and just had a few weeks of online lectures to do and some online revision before exam time.
This year is much more challenging because from the start we are trying to integrate online and face-to-face teaching, with hundreds of students. Having been an LLM student myself at LSE, I know that students at LSE are driven by an academic interest. We have to keep that up through our online materials, and be responsive to the needs of students, making sure that the experience is as interactive as possible.
In the coming academic year, the focus will naturally be on delivering exceptional teaching and learning, but when you do have the time, what would your dream research project be?
Aside from focusing on teaching, I am keen to find ways to develop bonds within our community and to settle in to LSE life. In terms of a research project, right now it’s all about finishing my book!
Finally, what is the best piece of advice you can give to incoming law students?
Knowing LSE students, you certainly don’t need to give them advice to work hard! What I would say is that students should enjoy their experience as much as possible, and make the most of this very strange time. London is an incredible city and students should make the time to explore. There’s lots to do even in a time of Coronavirus. The parks are absolutely beautiful in every season, as are walks by the river - there are many opportunities to get to know the city on foot.
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