Dr Ashley Pearson | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

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Dr Ashley Pearson

PhD Griff., LLB (Hons) Griff., BA (Jap) Griff., JP 

  • Lecturer, Law
  • School of Law and Society
Email
Telephone
+61 7 5456 5522
Office location
SD-D-G.21
Campus
Sunshine Coast

Profile

Dr Ashley Pearson joined the School of Law and Criminology as a law lecturer in 2020 and has previously worked at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Griffith University and Queensland University of Technology in a variety of teaching and research roles.

Ashley was awarded the University Medal at Griffith University for her undergraduate studies and was also one of four Australian recipients of the competitive monbuklagakusho scholarship in 2015 which enabled her to conduct PhD research at Kobe University, Japan.

Ashley's research focuses on the nexus between law and culture, with a particular interest in the tracings of law within and through video games, transmedial narratives, fandom, and technology. She has presented at the premier conferences in her field throughout Australasia, and publishes regularly and widely within interdisciplinary legal circles. After completing her PhD in August 2019, Ashley is currently working to adapt her PhD thesis, 'Legal Personhood in Video Games, Canonical Media and Fandom' into a monograph.

As an eager collaborator, Ashley was the lead editor on the Law and Justice in Japanese Popular Culture edited collection published with Routledge in 2018 and is currently one of the editors of the Playing Law: A Jurisprudence of Video Games and Virtual Realities collection with its anticipated publication in 2021. She also occupies an editorial role as a book review editor for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. 

Professional memberships

  • Member of the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia
  • HQ Officer of the Graphic Justice Research Alliance
  • English Book Review Editor for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
  • Golden Key International Honours Society

Awards

  • Griffith University Medal of Academic Excellence for Bachelor of Arts

Research areas

  • Cultural Legal Studies
  • Law and Video Games
  • Law and Fandom
  • Law and Technology
  • Japanese Culture
  • Legal Personhood