Law professor wins international book award

Wendy Raeside
Professor Davina Cooper by University of Kent

Law professor Davina Cooper has won the Charles Taylor Book Award 2015 for her book 'Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces'.

The annual award is presented by the American Political Science Association – which has more than 13,000 members worldwide – for the best book in political science that employs or develops interpretive methodologies and methods

Professor Davina Cooper is Professor of Law and Political Theory at Kent Law School. In Everyday Utopias, she challenges the common assumption that utopia means a perfect but unattainable place that is far away, both in time and geography.

She describes how everyday utopias are present and near to hand, in aspirational but also imperfect spaces, that are open and accessible to all.

Research for the book took place over 11 years, focusing on six sites dedicated to very different kinds of everyday activity, from debating (Speakers Corner, London) to appearing naked in public (Toronto Women’s Bathhouse).

Professor Cooper will receive the book award in person at the APSA annual business meeting in San Francisco on 4 September 2015.

Find out more about Everyday Utopias on the publishers’ website: https://www.dukeupress.edu/everyday-utopias