Sin, Crime and Hate Speech - the ESU funds research by David Martin Jones

25 May 2021

The ESU has awarded its inaugural Major Project Grant of AUD $10,000 to Dr David Martin Jones for a research project entitled Sin, Crime and Hate Speech.

David is an Australian who is currently based in London, affiliated with the War Studies Department, King’s College, University of London. He summarises his project as follows:

‘Since the millennium, English-speaking democracies have become so preoccupied by hate speech that they have sought not only to criminalise utterance, but also to extend its sanction from the public to the private domain. The novelty of policing speech represents a remarkable extension of the law. This project therefore explores how policing what we do with words has facilitated the evolution of a ‘cancel culture’ across the Anglosphere and in the process has eroded the common law’s protection of individual liberty. My research will trace the interesting career of hate speech by addressing three themes: the relationship between sin, crime and the modern state; the public morality of the secular state; and the collectivist ethic governing sanitized speech.’

The ESU’s grant will facilitate David’s archival research at the Public Record Office (London) and in the National Archives of Australia, and will also assist his conduct of interviews with those active in maintaining freedom of speech in the UK, Australia and Canada.

David will share the findings from his project via lectures and publications. He plans to visit Melbourne in early December 2021 to deliver a public lecture for the ESU. We will announce further details later in the year.

To learn more about David Martin Jones and his research, visit: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/dr.-david-martin-jones

To download a PDF of the ESU's Media Release about the award to Dr Jones, click HERE.

To learn about other recent winners of ESU awards, click HERE.